Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

To clarify, I was not looking at the clock. I noticed that Senator Mullen was leaving the Chamber just as I am about to answer his questions after being absent for my opening statement.

I thank the Senators for their contributions. This was an interesting and useful debate and I take note of the many issues that have been raised by contributors. I will attempt to respond to as many as I can but it will probably not be possible to address all of them in the eight minutes available to me.

Senator Thomas Byrne and others noted that the EU is very good at introducing lofty and grandiose strategies but that perhaps we would be better served if it responded to the immediate crisis. I would exercise caution in that regard, although I understand their frustration. I have been critical of the Lisbon strategy and have already stated my belief that it has failed. However, it did not fail because it was trying to set out a path for the medium to long term but through a lack of political will. This State is as responsible as every other member state for that failure, reasons for which include breaches of the stability and growth pact and inadequate economic governance and bank regulation across the European Union. There was no political will to put these structures in place. The Minister for Finance put it well when he stated that we built a currency without an architecture to support it.

To some extent, we need more rather than less of Europe. In any politics, be it domestic or European, setting out a path - Senator Mullen has returned - for progress, with benchmarks and a clear agenda for the economy and society is the right thing to do. Knee-jerk reactions to short-term problems is not the way we want to go. That is how this country was governed for the past 14 years and it is the reason we are in our current crisis. Arguably, one of the failings of the European Union was that it did not aggressively and energetically pursue a long-term strategy. While it had a strategy, this was largely ignored. That is not a reason to argue against a strategy for the future, however, because the EU needs strong political leadership if we are to find a way out of this crisis in the medium and long term. If anybody thinks the growth that China experienced in recent years happened by accident, he or she is sorely mistaken, because it has been assiduously pursued over many years.

I do not want to get into "he said, she said" party politics but questions have been raised about the idea that reputational damage has been done to this country. I have been involved in European affairs for more than ten years. In the last Dáil, I was a member of both of the Oireachtas committees dealing with European matters and I took my job seriously. I was also active in my party's network in the EPP. However, I had no idea of the extent to which our reputation had been damaged until I met key representatives of the European institutions in my capacity as Minister of State. Most critically, Irish people who were actively participating in European institutions and Irish companies based in Brussels and Luxembourg have no doubt that Ireland's reputation as a country with which to do business has been seriously damaged. I am not pointing fingers or apportioning blame, it is a fact and we need to get on with the job of restoring our reputation.

I acknowledge that Irish companies have excellent reputations. Senator Byrne alluded to the Kerry Group, which is one of our major exporters and success stories, and there are many other companies with similarly untarnished reputations but the reputation of Ireland Inc. - I dislike the term - and our Government has been severely damaged. Over the past three months we have already made progress in terms of undoing some of that damage.

Senator Mullen referred to the three priority areas of SMEs, competitiveness and innovation. I concur entirely with him in this regard. He also stated that our 12.5% corporate tax rate is vital to our industrial strategy and prospects for recovery. This is a point which Ministers have been making in all our bilateral and multilateral meetings in Brussels and elsewhere in Europe over the past three months. It is not fair to claim the EU is staging an assault on our corporate tax rate. The European Commission has been trenchant in its support and has been openly critical of the member state which, for domestic reasons, has focused its sights on the matter.

It is also not true to say that the vast majority of member states have any interest in changing our corporate tax rate or that the European institutions have their sights set on it. We are working hard to get out of the deadlock in this regard. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, and his officials have remained in constant contact with the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry, and I have been playing my part in the matter. The signals in recent days have been more encouraging but I do not want to pre-empt the outcome given the sensitive nature of the issues arising, which are, of course, informed by domestic politics and have more to do with national parliaments than the European institutions.

Senator van Turnhout made a thought-provoking intervention in regard to youth on the move. I acknowledge her deep interest and knowledge of this area and I am sure the debates on this subject in the Oireachtas and the Committee on European Union Affairs will benefit from her expertise. It also spills over into the portfolio of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton.

Much of what was said is accurate. There is an expectation that we are lining up for a battle royal with the forthcoming multiannual financial framework. It is always a battle royal. It is usually a battle royal between the British and the French. We usually find ourselves on the same side as the French. It will be no different this time because our interest is in defending the Common Agricultural Policy.

I wish to add a note of caution. It is not in this country's interests to only focus on defending our national interests in a narrow sense. We are Europeans as much as the French, Germans or Spanish. We are all Europeans. We all have a stake in this project. It is in our interests to ensure that the common European agenda is a positive one without simply always reverting to a knee-jerk reactionary attitude. While we wish to defend the Common Agricultural Policy and the great benefits it has brought to rural development in this country and to food security and food safety, we must couch the debate in a much broader context.

I have had interesting discussions with the Minister for Agriculture, Marine and Food, Deputy Coveney, in which he contextualised this country's defence of the Common Agricultural Policy in the very real challenge of food security on a global scale. We have a booming population, unfortunately not in Europe but in the regions referred to by many speakers such as China, South America and the African Continent. They are areas where food crises already exist in some parts and where there will be a more serious crisis in the years ahead.

Europe and the Common Agricultural Policy within the European Union has a significant role to play in ensuring that we can secure our food supply for the future. The Chinese economy will be the largest one. Senator Quinn made an interesting contribution in that regard. It is the economy which will spin the globe on its axis. China will be able to dictate what food products it wants and the quality and type. We in the European Union must be cognisant of that. We will no longer be the big economic player we were. That is a big threat.

Never was a truer word spoken than the old cliché, "United we stand, divided we fall", in terms of the European Union. We must wake up to the global pressures. As Senator Quinn said, it is all right to be nationalist when one wants one's football, rugby or cricket team to win but there is no room for nationalism in economics. We moved beyond that approximately ten years ago. The Chinese have seen that already. We must ensure this country's future economy is secure in the context of a united and cohesive European Union. That is not to say there are not major challenges, there are. I would like to see us face up to those significant challenges. Many European countries, big and small, have retrenched and washed their hands of some of the challenges that lie ahead. As a small member state it is up to us to remind member states, big and small, that our interests are best served by working together than by being divisive or divided. How much time do I have left?