Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I congratulate him and wish him every success. Delivering the agenda is no mean feat for one man to do.

The idea that the Lisbon Agenda can be delivered across 25 different states, each with its own economy and level of modernisation, is daft. As a previous speaker said, much of the motivation behind this is politics. It tries to keep the impression abroad that the entity that is the European Union today, the 25 states, can deliver something, despite being in competition with the likes of Chinese, the Indian economies and others. I do not want to compete with those low wage economies, nor with many of the jobs on offer in the United States of America.

The political imperative for the leaders when they agreed this at the Lisbon summit was to ensure that we would have the most competitive economy in the world by 2010, etc. The idea that we can bring the levels of difference between all the economies of the Union together is daft. It is an aspiration we will find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Many colleagues have asked how we have managed to gain our high employment levels over the past ten to 15 years. The answer is not a state secret. One, possibly the most important, ingredient was the low level of corporate taxation that existed for foreign multinational companies that wanted to invest here. We should not forget that America invests more in Europe than anywhere else in the world. While others in the European Union tut-tutted in our direction and lost many of those companies to us, we managed to gain a foothold and, as a result, built huge numbers in employment here from that source.

Another reason we succeeded was that we had a large, unemployed, well educated young population with low expectations. That has changed radically in recent years, because of high levels of employment among young people, something unique in Europe. Unemployment is a significant issue throughout Europe. The big problem among the new eastern European EU states is a high level of youth unemployment. One need only look at this problem in Poland to understand why so many of them are here doing jobs our young people will not do. They are here because the opportunities do not exist in Poland. They will travel the length and breadth of the Union to gain employment and language skills.

The English language, an international language, has been a significant factor in our economic success. Significant employment resulted from that on account of our large young population and our access as a bridge between America and mainland Europe. We must keep these facts in mind. Our economic model is, therefore, completely unlike that of other western European economies, for example, the French, German and British models which traditionally had a large concentration of manufacturing employment until the late 1970s. We never had a significant level of manufacturing industry, as was the case throughout western Europe, in particular France and Germany.

I agree with all Senator McDowell said on the issue of a flat rate tax. The notion that every taxpayer should pay the same percentage of his or her salary at one rate is regressive. I like the notion prevalent in many western countries that the more one earns, the more one pays. This is right in a progressive society. One can operate a flat rate tax in Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and other countries which are virtually basket case economies. The introduction of a flat rate tax there might stimulate economic growth.

Another advantage of a flat rate tax is that it would eliminate overnight tax shelters and the like by which some people can hide their wealth. Nevertheless, I agree with Senator McDowell that the introduction of a flat tax regime throughout Europe runs contrary to notions of economic fairness and equality on which our tax system should be based. The idea of a flat tax rate was brilliantly employed by one of our political opponents at EU level in the recent German general election, but the political party in question now finds itself in government with its erstwhile opponents.