Dan Boyle (Green Party)

Senator O'Toole is correct is saying that questions need to be asked about the draft discussion document and it is important that such a debate is held before final decisions are reached in this area. However, I do not think the question should be posed in the form of scaremongering. It is unfortunate that the type of questioning which has been posed in the other House and in our national media over the last number of days has coincided with the arrival of a Conservative Party led Government in Britain which is likely to be quite Eurosceptic in tone and would not differ very much from what has been said in that quarter on the euro.

It is obvious that the discussion document is a response to events in Greece. We have a common currency which is unlike any other, in that there are 27 different economies, all running at different levels of development, and there is a need for a level of co-ordination which has not existed thus far which has brought us to a situation whereby we have to respond to one member state in a crisis mode. It would be more responsible for other political parties to ask the wider questions as to how we can deal with a common currency in the future.

I not believe the discussion document says anything like what has been portrayed so far. It does not refer to line item vetoes or what taxes should be raised, to what amount and at what rates. It refers to having a common approach to budgetary matters, something which Senator O'Toole has already pointed out exists in the Maastricht treaty, in terms of the convergence criteria, the 3% budget deficit and the 60% debt ratio. Article 136 of the Lisbon treaty, which Fine Gael was very enthusiastic about campaigning for a short number of months ago, also refers to this.

I ask for a degree of level headedness and an absence of naked political point scoring on this issue, at a time when we are likely to see a number of other economic indicators which are giving fresh hope that we are starting to go in the right direction. We should examine those figures in the context of the economy and how, as a member of the European Union and the eurozone, we can meet the challenges together.