Good afternoon and welcome to our annual IIEA European Commission seminar on the EU's country specific recommendations or CSRs for Ireland. We have a distinguished and very panel of speakers this afternoon presenting perspectives on the recommendations from the Irish government of the European Commission and a discussion of the recommendations implications for Irish workers business and the economy with leaders from ICTO, IBEQ and the ESRI. To begin Helen McIntee, Minister for European Affairs will speak to us for about 15 minutes and then we'll go to a Q&A with the minister. You'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom which you should see at the bottom of your screens. The minister has to leave us to attend another meeting at one o'clock so that will be a hard deadline so please get your questions and comments in early for her. At one o'clock then Declan Costolo, one of the most senior Irish officials in Brussels who is Deputy Director General of the European Commission's Director General for Economic and Financial Affairs, will discuss some of the recommendations and he'll also update us on EU level responses to the pandemic. We'll then go to our panel Patricia King, General Secretary of ICTO, Danny McCoy, CEO of IBEQ and Professor Alan Barrett, Director of the ESRI. They'll give the responses and comments on the recommendations and then we'll open up for a further Q&A with the panelists. A reminder that the entire event today is on record and with that I'll hand over to you, Minister Macinty. Thank you for joining us. Thanks Dan and good afternoon to everyone. Thank you to you and your team for inviting me to be part of this and I suppose to congratulate you as well on hosting these series of discussions. I think it's really important while we can't meet in person and I don't think you can ever replace that person-to-person engagement particularly given the current situation we find ourselves in, challenges that were faced but also that the need to examine and critically analyse the challenges that we're going to face in the coming weeks and months, these kind of discussions I think are really, really important. So to acknowledge the other speakers in case they're on when I'm gone or we don't get to say hello again, Declan from the Commission, Alan, Patricia and Dani as well. I've had a chance to meet with some of them in person in recent weeks. Others not but hopefully we'll all get a chance to engage properly as things ease up and as our economy and our society starts to recover. If I could maybe just set the scene a little bit as to where we are in Ireland, what the economic situation looks like and maybe a little bit of the economic and indeed the overall response from the EU because I think it does set the picture for the current situation for the recommendations that have been made and why they have been made particularly in light of the COVID crisis. If we look at the unprecedented economic and social challenges that COVID has presented us with in recent weeks and months, we look at the overall figures today and while it might change slightly because we have obviously a lot more people getting back to work today which is fantastic but as of yesterday there were 1.1 million people in Ireland on some form of government payment so whether it was through the pandemic unemployment payment, the wage assist scheme or various other government payments they might have been on before now that equates to about 26.1% of our overall population, our working population which is a massive figure. If you compare that to the economic crash 10 years ago, we had a height of about 16% unemployment, 22% maybe for younger people which that type of figure was replicated across the EU but it's a significant figure and really highlights the complication situation we find ourselves in and the complex, I suppose the complexities of COVID and the work that we need to do. Similarly, if you look at the Exchequer Returns for May, we've recorded a deficit of almost 6.1 billion euro again and unprecedented kind of figure, a number but what this I think reflects is the huge amount of support that the government has put in place to try and support business, industries, individual citizens so that we can limit job losses, we can limit income loss, that we can keep employers and employees connected but that we can also preserve the economic activity in general. If we look at GDP it's expected to fall by 10.5% this year while modified domestic demand is expected to fall by 15% this year alone. So this is the scale of what we're dealing with. You also have to take into account and I don't think I need to explain to anybody on the line at the potential implications of a no trade deal Brexit which is also coming at a sort of very quick race at the moment. We've had four rounds of negotiations and again it's very difficult to have these kind of negotiations where you can't meet face to face but after four rounds of negotiations we are seeing very little progress whether it's on the area of level playing field, whether it's on fisheries, whether it's on governance and many key issues and the result of little progress in that area potentially means that by the end of this year where we had hoped to see a projected decrease in unemployment figures suddenly being hit with potential implications of a no trade deal Brexit. So we have to take all of these issues into account. We also have to ensure that the withdrawal agreement and in particular the Northern Ireland protocol as has already been agreed is implemented in full and to date we haven't seen a lot of detail from the UK to ensure that by the end of this year that will be implemented in full but obviously we're working with the Commission and hoping that the UK will come forward with greater details. So this is a very difficult and a very challenging road that we find ourselves on and obviously provides the context as I've said for this year's European semester and for our country specific recommendations. If I could maybe just touch on the EU's response to COVID-19. I know it will be discussed maybe a little bit more in detail later but I think what's different here to the last time we face an economic crisis is that Ireland is not facing this alone. Every single member state is in the same situation albeit potentially at a different stage or at a different scale or level but this is a challenge that's shared by all member states within the European Union. As noted for those who haven't seen it in the Commission's spring economic forecast GDP for the EU 27 is expected to decline by 7.4% this year for the Euro area the Commission has also foreseen a drop of 7.7% in GDP. What's clear is that this is a crisis challenge again from precedented scale that we face jointly which means there needs to be a joint response to us and I do take an exact and I think the Commission has accepted some criticisms that perhaps the response was not quick enough that there wasn't enough done for member states but I would very much point to the fact that this was a crisis the size the scale and the speed of which we have never seen before and I think for each member state I suppose we responded in a way that we felt we had to but very quickly the Commission has come together we have seen a massive response not just in establishing a single market task force which has allowed for any blockages and single market movement of goods people central services to open up we've seen the Commission support the repatriation of over 500,000 EU citizens that we've seen a mass coming together of financial support but also some of the brightest minds in the EU to try and actually deal with this pandemic in identifying a cure to us but significantly and I think most importantly that we've seen massive measures and financial supports already been put in place and more to come hopefully which will be able to agree in the coming months you have a three-pillared approach as part of this economic response firstly the triggering of the general escape clause of disability and growth pact which Ireland has already benefited significantly from the endorsement by the European Commission or the Council in April of the three safety nets this is the suite of loans that were agreed of 540 billion for our member states for citizens for businesses through the shore the ESM and the AIB mechanisms and then finally and I think significantly in the last two weeks the Commission has presented a very ambitious and quite a large suite of measures through firstly the next MFF which is proposed to be 1.1 trillion euro but secondly on top of that 750 billion euros worth of grants and loans more potentially towards loans in this instance and why this is significant I think is because this really shows solidarity among member states Ireland was one of nine member states to seek corona bonds as they were called at the time but essentially to ensure that those member states that are hardest hit that they're supported that any type of measure that it's ambitious that it's targeted that it's timely that it's temporary and we feel that proposed by the Commission really does feed into all of those areas and the recovery package will be front-loaded investment it's planned that it would be funded through a OneSoft Commission borrowing on the markets again an exceptional kind of response for an unprecedented circumstances so overall these are going to be important measures in how we all respond and how all member states take on board not just the recommendations but how we I suppose feed them into the plans that we've already implemented as well and we also have to take into account not just that the COVID response but our general priorities as well as as countries and as member states and we look at the MFF and my own colleagues in the EU will hear me every single time I speak whether it's about the MFF or not stress the need for there to be a fully funded cap for our farming community for rural communities to be supported and while I would welcome the additional 15 billion that has been highlighted in the pillar two package through the next generation recovery package there are many other programs that we need to see fully supported whether it's cohesion whether it's additional funding for Peace Plus which is a significant for us in Northern Ireland jobs recovery packages research investment so many different areas so you know there's a lot of things that we need and we would like to see further detail on and we're analysing at the moment and president of the open cancer would obviously like to see an agreement on this by the time you leaders meet in person in July and obviously that's a very ambitious timeline given that the amount of work that needs to be done but I suppose the amount of analysis and the fact that we need to be to be honest here not everybody maybe agrees with how this should be funded and the type of mechanisms that should be put in place but we are fully committed as I know all of our colleagues are to try and finding a solution as quickly as possible and to try and ensuring that we have a coordinated response to this crisis this is where obviously that the European semester can bring great value and through the annual cycle really it's a mechanism through which we can coordinate our policies to try and improve our growth our social prospects for all member states to advance our overall shared responsibilities to bring about sustainable growth and future employment opportunities for the benefit of each and every one of us as we look to the end of the 2020 cycle it's important to reflect on the process and if we look at this year we saw a number of new features in the semester process most notably firstly an increased focus on sustainability and but also a particular focus of integration of the UN sustainable development goals Ireland's 2020 countries specific reports very clearly says that we are making progress and particularly in the implementation of the 17 SDGs towards achieving our overall goals by 2030 but there is of course still work to do this is something we very much support we have an implementation plan for this in Ireland which is due to come to a finish this year but hopefully we will have a new implementation plan from next year onwards as to how we can achieve those goals but how we can support programs that help us to get to that and we'll also continue obviously to advocate for the implementation of them at an international level and also at the European level as well we would also welcome the increased role that the semester is playing and supporting and trying to reach our climate ambitions and this is something that obviously is and we were asking for to underpin any kind of a recovery Ireland was one of 18 member states our Minister for Climates Richard Gruden to call for any economic recovery or social recovery to be underpinned by the European Green Deal and I think we now have an opportunity to press and I say opportunity I suppose unfortunately in these current circumstances but to press a restart button in many instances to use this as an opportunity to change our structures to change our systems but also potentially change how we think because I think a lot of this is changing a mind set and changing our own approach and you know if you take something as simple as each of us in our individual lives or environments in our workplaces we have all had to adapt we've all had to change to the current situation we're probably all on zoom more times than we had ever been in our life before now but it has been an opportunity to adapt and to change and to advance the digital transition as well much quicker than we ever thought possible so this is you know I suppose an opportunity to do that and we see that increased role through the semester in supporting these efforts in our own country specific recommendations that may be just to touch on and to acknowledge and to welcome some of them a particular strong focus on the need for us in our response to the covid pandemic addressing the labour market participation education and skills development support for SMEs and again investments for the particular focus on sustainability these are key to the economic recovery which is to come on and we hope will come as quickly as possible we also in particular would welcome the cross cutting approach that's been taken by the Commission to try and shape a truly pan European economic response to this while obviously looking at how we can cooperate better when it comes to our health care systems and this is something that it may be is new as well so you look at and the next generation package which has been presented at the 750 billion euro fund sustainability the digital economy is at the heart of this but also a new and renewed focus on our health sectors as a proposal to spend 9.1 billion euro and trying to make sure that we have capabilities to respond to a crisis like this in the future but that we are perhaps better connected and unable to to engage with each other at a European level because of course our health systems are national competencies so it creates somewhat of a challenge in that regard in terms of the overall response at an at a government level we are of course discussing and debating the country specific recommendations and including this will be discussed at the next European Council which will take place later on this month via video conference by our leaders we consider all of them we will as always take on board the recommendations that have been made and I suppose you have to take into account the political situation we find ourselves in Ireland as well in that we are currently at my own party with the fenevol party and green parties trying to form a new government a new programme for government very much minded by these recommendations by the needs to change and to adapt to respond to covid but to not just have a short term plan to have a longer term economic and social plan as well so these were very much underpin I think a lot of the work that's been done and you know like hopefully we will have some form of a government sooner rather than later because I really think to be able to get moving on implementation of so many things that will be needed in the coming weeks and months but we need a strong government with a strong mandate finally just I suppose to maybe say in terms of the overall semester process back in 2010 and the European Commission proposed a new programme for member states which would like essentially a greater coordination among economic policies or soon after that then the financial crisis was revealed very clear need for that for greater collaboration coordinates for more coherent economic and government system at an EU level where we find ourselves today again in some of a similar crisis albeit a very different situation the very same tools are what we rely on to try and help not just ourselves in Ireland to recover but for all of us to engage and to recover at the same time so we are fully supported to the European semester process and we will continue to engage with the Commission to play our part to work with our European colleagues and to ensure that we all emerge from this stronger that we emerge from this together because there was absolutely no point in 10 or 20 or 25 member states getting through this our economies recovering our societies getting back to normal if we're leaving anybody behind and so that is our ultimate goal and objective that we get through this together and when it comes to Ireland that we support business industries and sectors to get through this as quickly as we can so I've done probably better than I was supposed to but thank you very much the opportunity to engage with you and thank you to everyone who's online this afternoon for tuning in and hopefully now we have a chance for a few questions. Good thank you yeah thank you Minister I see they're coming in already we've got 200 people joining us at this point so I'm sure we'll have lots more than we can deal with in the 12 minutes. Let me throw one to you straight away issues around state aides and level playing fields this is a hugely important thing in the Brexit context but the pandemic has brought it to the 27 in a way that nobody might have ever anticipated effectively the rule book has gone out the window is there a concern in government around that some other governments may have more resources to help help their their businesses any concern about how that affects the level playing field across the 27 and what sort of pathway do you see back to some sort of normality and over what time frame. But I suppose that the last question is it's difficult to predict any kind of a time frame as you say a lot of the rules it's not that they've gone out the window but I think there has been a flexibility created that is absolutely necessary given the crisis that we're all facing and you know the fact that this is not just one or two member states everybody is impacted albeit perhaps maybe at a different scale and at a different time so we needed that flexibility and I think the EU response was quite quick and allowing that Ireland alone has benefited I think to the June of four hundred million already because of that flexibility and that ability to go beyond what would be the normal rules and I mean you have to I suppose look at the facts that you know and I was asked this question last week around breaching the deficit limits what will the consequences be how do we you know how do we respond to the needs of citizens while at the same time trying to remain physically prudent and you know physically prudent doesn't mean austerity it shouldn't necessarily mean having to impose massive cuts and huge tax increases on on citizens and I think that's the last thing that we want to do and it's certainly the last thing that other member states want to do but we have to make sure that we have a longer-term plan that we don't just keep spending that we don't just keep borrowing that these flexibilities are not there and definitely because it will come a point in time where we do have to try and create some balance where we do have to make sure that we go back and start working within the framework and the structures within the European Union you know so I think for now it's important that the support is provided I think it's important that those flexibilities remain I think it's important that there is solidarity and again that's why the 750 billion euro fund I think is so significant albeit you know there are difference of views and opinions as to how much of that should be loans how much of that should be grants but it's about rebooting our economy it's about getting people back to work and you know if that means maybe working outside of the promises for a little bit longer than I think that's certainly something that we would advocate for but again you know we need to make sure that at the end of this we have a debt that's valuable that's sustainable that this is workable and you know the longer these go on the more difficult that becomes and so you know I suppose timeline it's very hard to see how but you know when we look at the repayment of the possible 750 billion euro we're talking about that being we paid from 2028 onwards over a period of 30 years it obviously raises questions as to how we will repay it the suggestions of new home resources which would raise concerns and questions for us particularly around digital tax around CCC TV or in carbon carbon border adjustment mechanisms all of these things are issues that have to be discussed further that have to be looked at in depth and you know we will do so with with our colleagues and we will do so with other member states in the weeks to come and once in years I think to come. Patrick Paul Walsh who's an international development specialist in UCD more a comment delighted to see the emphasis on SDGs and the Paris agreement embedded in the recovery says it's important that there be an SDG implementation plan in place this year so I think that's more of a comment. Adrian Pound. I could just say that we had an implementation plan from 2018 to 2020 and as this was a whole of government approach looking at the implementation but supporting programs that would help further with the implementation so my understanding is that by the end of this year we will have a proposal for a new implementation plan which would start later on next year. Okay good the Netherlands ambassador to Ireland Adrian Pound makes a very interesting contribution suggests could the country specific recommendations be looked on as a mechanism for conditionality with the new package of possible loans and grants that have been that are being agreed at EU level so this issue of some sort of conditionality could the CSRs be the basis for that some type of conditionality. So I think what's been suggested anyway at the moment is that the CSRs would be somewhat linked and that there would have to be a report that each member states would have to fill in in terms of in terms of their overall need and requirements and how funding is being spent so whether that's you know I know some member states and I've spoken to the ambassadors Europe Minister only in the last week member states are looking for more stringent measures around conditionality as to how things are spent there's obviously and had been before the COVID crisis proposals for newer mechanisms to be put in place which would link spending with the rule of law which would link spending with certain other conditionalities so I think there will have to be some mechanism and certainly I think that the country specific recommendations would play a part in that but to what level I don't know and in what detail I'm just not sure. Okay one from Mike Allen who's the Director of Advocacy at Focus Ireland thanks you for your presentation says he was disappointed that housing and homelessness wasn't raised wondering what the EU how let me quote what more can the EU do to assist us solve our housing and homelessness problems. I suppose as listeners will know it's it's a national competency in terms of how we respond to this crisis and you know certainly we had a significant and challenging time in the last 10 years with economic crash trying to respond to the fact that I suppose that the building market collapsed there was no need for the houses that are now essentially I suppose that we are behind the curve and the investment wasn't there at the time when we needed it we put a huge amount of work in the last number of years through our government housing plan to try and get to the level where we are providing the number of houses at the speed that it's needed we've built over 20,000 houses last year we're in target again this year I think particularly when it comes to our social housing markets the objective is to build over 50,000 houses throughout the lifetime of the plan and that's not just through new bills if you include on top of that acquisitions and many other various different supports and assisted schemes and there's a lot of work underway albeit I accept the progress has been slow maybe at the earlier stages of this program but I really think we're starting to see progress of course we don't know how COVID is going to impact on the overall markets there are some suggestions that house prices might come down but the cost of building will go up whether or not this you know the huge loss of jobs at the significant increase in unemployment numbers could potentially again have a negative impact in that regard so we need to make sure that I suppose no matter what we're doing and particularly in a new program for government that this remains a key focus and a priority for us and just to ensure people that that is the case that it's very much a part of the discussions and negotiations at a European level you know I know the recommendations do touch on this so suppose it's a matter of us taking these on board and doing everything that we can and a final one minister if I made the the industries that look as if they'll be hit hardest by these by by the pandemic hospitality areas of transport many of these jobs are lower lower paid often lower skilled is there a risk and you know those with lower skills in lower pay sectors tend to have the most difficulty getting into new jobs is there a concern around what can be done to help people reskill and find find alternative employment if the jobs don't come back in in areas like hospitality well I suppose there's two things there maybe firstly you're right in saying that you know all sectors are impacted but I would say in particular certain sectors are going to find it harder to to get back to normal and for a lot of people to even reopen their doors and we have this week we're going to announce a specific package for the hospitality sector which will I suppose try and provide additional funding supports but other mechanisms to allow the sector to reopen and for people to get moving as things start to reopen probably towards the end of this month into early July and but we do know that there are certain jobs that won't be there there's certain work that will need to be done we have the national skill strategy which was established which goes out to 2025 and crucial part of that is that making sure that we have highly educated highly skilled but a highly adaptable workforce as well and as part of that the springboard plus is key in terms of upskilling people in terms of looking at again an emphasis on digital skills and workforces of the future so people where so where people and their jobs are not available or where there's you know a need to readjust and these type of programs this kind of mechanisms efforts is a huge amount of funding being put in place to support them will be absolutely vital for those sectors and to allow people to reskill to retrain to adapt and to change to what's going to be a very changed environment as we come out of COVID but you know I supposed to say first and foremost our objective and our goal is to make sure that we can support as many of those people as possible to get back to the sectors and industries that they've always worked in and that is our first goal and objective but secondly where that's not possible and definitely as I said that the national skills strategy and many parts of that strategies as I mentioned one springboard plus it will be absolutely vital and helping people to upskill to reskill to adjust and to adjust the new environment that we find ourselves in. Good minister I think with one minute left rather than throw you another question we'd be maybe more advisable to let you get to your other meeting now so on behalf of the Institute and the Commission we're co-hosting the event with thank you for taking the time to join us and for sharing those thoughts with us and answering answering the questions so thanks again and have a good afternoon. Thanks a million Dan thanks to everyone and good luck to all of the participants now for the next hour. Thank you. Good so if I could bring in our other four participants we'll kick off with Declan Costolo in Brussels who is going to give a commission obviously not perspective on the on the CSRs he's going to give a presentation on that now bear with us on the technicals as this as this comes up his presentation will come up on the screen if all goes to plan so as I say bear with me I'm not quite seeing coming up yet there we are I see Declan welcome Declan do you do you are you going to take you're going to take the screen no actually could somebody manage it from there please okay good so colleagues will can we begin Declan's thank you good okay great so I think we should get a bigger yeah that's it I think we're ready to go Declan over to you thank you okay so good afternoon everybody I'd like to thank the Institute for co-hosting this event today with the European Commission so what I would like to do today if I go to the next slide I'd like to do two things first I would like to explain to you how the Commission has responded to the economic impact of the coronavirus and more specifically how we've adapted the European semester process to what is you know a dramatic turn of economic events and then secondly I'd like to spell out the recommendations which have now been addressed to Ireland so if we can go to the next slide and again so obviously what's driving the whole process of course is that is the huge economic impact of the pandemic and in our forecasts which was published in early May we projected that real GDP in Ireland would fall by almost 8% this year there would be a rebound in the course of 2021 but it was it would only be a partial recovery of the loss of the loss growth and now the impact which we project on GDP in Ireland is actually very very similar to what we expect for the euro area as a whole okay but maybe it's obviously there's a huge amount of uncertainty and what we see is a large number of downside risks now when we what the the minus 8% figure is our baseline forecast but we did run some additional scenarios in the event of the containment measures lasting longer than we had initially seen and in that longer lasting scenario we project growth could be somewhere in the region of minus 10 minus 11 and in the event of a second wave of the pandemic spreading we project that growth could actually be almost minus somewhere between minus 15 and minus 16% now since we published that forecast in May it does seem that some of the containment measures are being withdrawn more progressively than we had initially assumed so I think the possibility is that you know when we come to revise our forecast we will probably be leaning towards this longer lasting scenario right now compared to our baseline now if I can turn to the next slide so clearly the challenge which we faced was to make the European semester process relevant for the economic challenges facing facing our member states and typically as you know we've tended to try to focus in on longer lasting structural challenges which affects growth and employment over the longer term but here given the immediacy of the crisis we had to react quickly now we've done this in several ways first we have adapted our recommendations on fiscal policy to reflect the fact that the general escape clause of the stability and growth pact has been activated I'll say more about that in a minute secondly we've tried to come up with broad indications for all member states given that this is a symmetric economic book in five areas which could help we which we hope will help guide countries as they start to design policies with to bring about a recovery process now these are include recommendations in the area of public health employment policy how to support business especially SMEs to the crisis how to provide liquidity support to corporates to enable them to survive and also recommendations to ensure the smooth functioning of the single market so these are specific new types of new types of recommendations specifically geared at addressing let's say the immediate challenges in front of us at the same time we do want to keep a forward-looking bridge to the sort of key structural challenges which our countries face and in particular which you know may move forward or keep you know as we put in place recovery plans to make sure that they work towards the longer term objectives of the union in terms of green and digital transition and so that's why the recommendations this year look look look different compared to what we have in previous years if I can turn to the next slide next slide okay and I actually got the next slide again okay now in addition to you know providing policy guidance to member states in terms of you know how we might collectively have a coordinated response to the pandemic it's also been very evident that there was a need for new levels work okay and a huge set of measures have now been what some have been agreed and some have been a proposed which hopefully will provide you know a fiscal stimulus to our countries to help us get through this very difficult period now the first set of proposals are already agreed and our operational or very very close to being operational so we have now a unemployment insurance scheme sure which member states can apply for funding or can make requests up to 100 billion euros in total and in the form of low concessional loans and these can be used to support short-term working schemes to help keep or protect people in their jobs to the extent that that is possible and this is agreed it should be operational by the hopefully by the end of June and worth 100 billion euros the second element which has been agreed is the post was called pandemic crisis support and again this is allows for the possibility for member states to request funding up to 2% of GDP from the ESM again at very concessional terms over the long term and then finally a guarantee fund of 25 billion has been provided to the IE which in turn should allow them to provide financial support to companies and the bulk of this is supposed to be oriented towards small size enterprises so this one this 540 billion in total is agreed and should be if not operational today should be operational in the next couple of weeks we then and this was the proposal of the Commission some days ago the Commission came forward with a revised proposal for the next multi annual financial framework for the period 2000 2021-2027 it's similar but slightly larger than the last proposal which was being discussed at the beginning of this year but on top of that the Commission has proposed next generation view so this is a 750 billion euro supplement to the MFF 500 billion in the form of grants 250 billion in the form of loans this would be sort of a one-off injection of funds which our member states could draw upon the idea would be that these funds should be dispersed and used ideally between 2021 and 2024 so precisely the moment when we need to sort of kick start with a covering in our economy now I'd like to say a couple of words about this next generation in you because it will play a critical role in shaping and guiding how the European semester goes forward if I could go to the next slide okay essentially what it's what what the Commission has proposed for this 750 billion euros is to break it down into three groups of funding okay the bulk of the funding will go in will be under the first pillar which is to support the recovery at member state level okay and the bulk of that funding 560 billion euros 310 of which would be in grants would would operate through a new recovery and resilience facility okay so the idea is that member states they have up to two years but we expect these discussions to start very quickly submit to the Commission plans and proposals for investments and reforms which should I say be front-loaded ideally undertaken in the period of 2024 and the Commission would assess those plans and there would be a very very heavy emphasis on on projects that support the deep green and digital transition and these recovery and resilience plans should be annexed to the national reform programs which member states submit to the Commission in April every year and on that basis and looking at the plans a series of disbursements can be arranged subjects to key indicators and targets being being being achieved so as I said all of this is of course it's still only a Commission proposal and so there's a lot of work to be done in negotiating on it one of the key issues of course is going to be the governance of this and the link to European semesters what role specific recommendations but it is clear that this will introduce a big change in the dynamic of the European semester because we will not only be discussing types of reforms which member states could you know which we recommend or consider should be done it actually means that there will be financial resources to back up implementation of many of these key reforms second pillar is more to help the private sector private sector start now here there's a number of facilities which are being envisaged perhaps the most innovative one is a solvency support instrument and so this is what the idea here is that guarantees would be provided on the budget to the EIB group who in turn through a series of financial intermediaries could provide equity support or equity type support for companies in the EU whose balance sheets have been damaged and the idea here would be to enable potentially viable companies to remain solvent and thrive over the long term and then finally a third group of projects the third pillar of support from the 750 billion this will go into reinforced healthcare programs also some reinforcement of the budgets for external support okay thank you if you could move to the next slide okay and again I did not cover it all right and again we move on so in a sense what the Commission so just to wrap up we the so what what we're facing for the semester is you know the need to come up with recommendations which help member states put in place the policies for the recovery and but we are also going to have to think about that these that this should eventually evolve into recovery plans which should help member states draw upon this recovery new recovery and resilience fund so if I can turn to the specific recommendations which regressed to Ireland we go to the next slide so the first recommendation concerns the fiscal policy now here it's it's it's very different to previous year because the stability and growth act has the general escape clause all the stability and growth act has been activated now that does not mean but the fiscal rules have been suspended what it means is that member states no longer have the obligation occur at the current economic juncture to to take policies which to achieve a balanced budget position over the economic cycle or to make the transition towards that okay so it makes clear what's you know the member we recall upon member states to take necessary fiscal measures to support the economy and the recovery process okay and in due course this of course needs to be consistent over time with debt sustainability in some positions now many we're the commission is getting very many questions on what does this mean in terms of when will the general escape clause be revoked when will member states have to return to parts of this consolidation right now there is so much uncertainty about the impact and trajectory of the of the pandemic and its economic impact we're simply not in a position to be able to we don't we simply feel it's too uncertain to be able to give guidance to member states on on on that's a media medium to longer term trajectories to restore debt sustainability so this is an issue which eventually we will have to conduct it but right now the message is that member states should use fiscal policy to support the economic recovery process if I can go to the next slide our second we have we then also have a CSR related to the health care system now I'm not an expert on the Irish health care system sure there's many more qualified people than I am in the audience and but it's clear that the COVID crisis did pass the light on many of the structural shortcomings and challenges facing the Irish health care system and clearly now it's it's we hope that my part of the recovery process will be important that these structural challenges are addressed now the CSR and the company and countries country report those identify areas which we think there is where the direction policy direction could could go forward one is obviously we see that it would be helpful if you know the implementation of small check care needs to be accelerated in particular the move to establish universal coverage for primary health care we also see scope to improve the IT systems in the the use of IT and within the health care system in Ireland I think it's been very evident in Ireland but in many countries about the possibility to have remote access to to to health care and then finally a particular issue in Ireland concerns health workers and now this is not just a question of the actual numbers of health professionals in the system but it does seem to be particular issues around recruitment and retention also in particular areas if I could turn to the next slide so there's a heavy focus as I mentioned at the beginning on the on the social impact of the economic crisis and here the the recommendation here talks you know the importance about developing skills particularly about tackling the digital divide in the education sector now so again I think here we do see that you know Ireland has some strengths when it comes to skills in the IT sector but we also see that actually you know the the level of digital skills in a sense in the general public is not as advanced as it would be compared to the new average a further issue which is drawn attention to of course in the CSR concerns the need to increase the provision of social and affordable housing now the country report does recognize that considerable progress has been made here but it would seem to be an area where there is scope for continued investment and certainly it could also help in terms of employment going forward if we could turn to the next slide now here this slide there's a recommendation this is about the immediate measures which have been put in place to provide liquidity support for households and for businesses we think that on the whole not only in Ireland but across Europe many of the governments have in general reacted quite quickly and nonetheless we call upon countries to you know do their best to ensure that these are are well targeted and also that they remain in place for as long as as is necessary if I could go to the next slide now the next slide is possibly one I think this recommendation on public investment this is actually probably the recommendation which is the most useful and the most interesting when it comes to thinking about the recovery and resilience plan going forward for Ireland because it identifies key areas where the commission believes not only the commission but the council believe that there is scope to increase public investment and this could be sort of the back role of all of the recovery and resilience plan I'll just go through some of these in I'll mention some of these in detail if I can go to the next slide so the first we can see is a focus on investment in the green transition so we do see that Ireland has been lagging behind when it comes to decarbonisation the climate action plan is however credible and vicious but now there's need to take it to the next level to finalize and submit the national energy climate plan and so we this I think should actually possibly you know one of the core elements of the resilience plan going forward maybe something important to note the just transition fund the commission as part of this 750 billion euros has proposed a significant increase in the financial provisions for the just transition fund so there may be scope to for for for Ireland to go be to look beyond what is already was considered at the beginning of the year if we can go to the next slide you should okay here there's also a mention of the reference on water supply and treatment where this refers to the very high leakage rate in the waste supply system water supply system of Ireland it's also of course there's a you know a general problem in Ireland in terms of waste water particularly in the larger areas and this has led to consistent problems of compliance with the waste waste water treatment so again waste so water supply and treatment I think could be a priority as indeed if you see on the next slide and suggest you suggest you know a continued focus on investment in clean public transport and there are some very ambitious plans when it comes to the electrification of the railway sector the transition to electric vehicles but of course these now might need to be backed up with with individual policies if we go forward to the next slide okay here the focus the recommendation also recommends you know continued focus on one or indeed there are some issues you know Ireland is you know an aggregate is not certainly not the weakest performer in the EU but we do see some issues about the level of funding which is unlikely to be sufficient to reach the common goal of 3.5% of GMP by 2020 and so further efforts could be undertaken in this regard and indeed there is possibly a need to look at the actual structure of public support being provided to to to to or for or indeed to the business sector given the very very heavy focus on tax credits which tends to focus tends to benefit most of the larger companies if I can turn to two more slides actually I've already think covered the digital transition if you can go okay and again now here last two slides you know the commission did decide in this package of CSRs to put quite a bit of attention on the issue of anti-money laundering and on the issue of tax and dealing with aggressive tax compliance and the reason for that is one we do see I mean obviously tax fairness is going to be an issue and obviously given the impact of COVID on our public finances the need to have efficient fair and effective tax collection systems will be will be important now the country report does recognize in both of these areas aggressive tax planning and anti-money laundering that Ireland has had you know has made progress in these areas but if you take anti-money laundering there is an inherent risk given the structure of the Irish economy for for for anti-money laundering now we do see that you know for example here there's a when it comes to sort of servicing companies and when it comes to sort of the servicing companies we do see risks in terms of the fact that the number of transactions which are reported by professionals as being suspicious is relatively low and therefore we have some concerns not so much with the institutional framework but with the actual role of the implementation of policies in these areas and that's why you're calling upon the Irish government to do more then I'll stop here sorry if I go on a bit too long but there's a lot of ground coverage thank you good thanks Declan was very much taken by the slide showing that Ireland's population is a lower than average level of basic digital skills but we might pick that one up later in the in the in the discussion quite why that would be the case given that we're one of the youngest populations if not the youngest population in a big tech sector so it'd be particularly interesting to look at that but just one issue that you raised you mentioned the symmetrical nature of this shock I know that was the feeling at the beginning but as things have gone on the economic data is showing a bit of a divergence between the north and the south that the the Nordic countries seem to be doing not as bad as the southern European countries are you seeing anything like that opening up in terms of economic performance in the pandemic period in the pandemic era you yeah no we indeed the the approximate cause of the shock indeed was symmetric however if we if we look at our economic forecasts what we see is that the projected impact on GDP this year and next year is asymmetric which in part depends on quite a lot of this seems to depend upon the structure of the economy so those economies which are heavily exposed or heavily reliant to some service sectors or the tourism sector they will be impacted considerably more than countries which maybe rely more of more like Germany on manufacturing where the expected rebound is anticipated to be higher at least but in addition to the differences in terms of economic impact what we're also seeing is differences in the policy response by member states and for many countries the types of policies which countries are introducing are very very similar in terms of liquidity support to households and firms but what we're seeing is that there's no real correlation between the economic impact of COVID and the actual size of the fiscal supports which are given and it's it's it's very differential and and clearly the capacity of countries of countries with low economic you know lower GDP but particularly with lower fiscal space countries with high level which enter the crisis with higher levels of debt and deficits in debt they have in general not been able to provide as big fiscal supports as other countries that poses quite a lot of risks it poses risks of growing economic divergence within the EU it poses risks in terms of the functioning of the single market and so for example to date over I think about 50% of all of the requests for approval under the temporary state aid framework have come from Germany now don't get me wrong we're very very supportive of what the German government is doing to support its enterprises but the capacity the fact that other countries are in a weaker position to do so makes us concerned about how this will play out for the level playing field I guess going forward we would also be concerned if if those countries which are in a weaker economic position to begin with if you know if they if they cannot then make the necessary investments when it comes to the green and digital transition what you could have is a very uneven approach to tackling climate change and the digital transition thank you okay thanks Declan good so let's go to our three panelists representing trade unions business and academy academia think tank we'll start with Patricia King who's the second general of the Irish Congress of Trade Union Patricia over to you thank you very much chair and on behalf of the Congress of Trade Unions which represents over 700 000 trade union members across the island I welcome the opportunity to set out our response to the European Commission's draft country specific recommendations and I particularly welcome the theme of today's discussion is a sustainable and fair economy for Ireland and for Europe I think it reflects in part the ongoing reassessment of many things that have been taken place over the recent weeks of public services of essential workers and of our whole sense of solidarity so as we are all acutely aware this year's CSRs have been presented against the backdrop of a non-precedentist disruption that COVID-19 has caused to societies and economies across the world and not least here in Ireland where tragically close to 1700 people have died so far and over 25 000 people have been infected nearly one third of whom are health care workers and all our worlds changed when the series and consequences of the news emerging from China from early this year slowly began to dawn on us and the economic and social situation and the challenges outlined in the 2020 country report published in late February were totally upended within days of the introduction of the necessary restrictions to protect public health in March so ICTU acknowledges that the EU's response to COVID-19 including as set out in the European Commission CSRs takes account of some of the lessons learned from it but frankly disastrous response to the 2008 financial crisis with a point of view of workers at least at least it is not that response that we are seeing albeit as the minister made reference to they have been somewhat late to the past in terms of solutions for one we very much agreed with the decision to activate the general escape clause of the stability and growth pact in response to the economic downturn and we now welcome specific calls in the CSRs to Ireland to take all the necessary measures to address the pandemic address the consequences and sustain the economy in support ensuring a recovery also to promote investment particularly on the green and digital transition and to improve the health system as Declan has gone into in great detail and ensure universal primary care cover to increase the provision of social and affordable housing to develop our skills and address the digital divide and to broaden the tax base and tackle aggressive tax planning these particular recommendations address many of the issues that we and others have been raising over many years but which hadn't been adequately addressed as the February's general election results probably clearly showed but we equally believe that what's not in the CSRs indicate that there is still some way to go before we can truly say that we're on the road to a sustainable and fair recovery in the limited time available i will just focus on one area which is the area of social dialogue and the ability of workers to collectively bargain the value of their labor and participants will recall that last year's commission's country report criticized the fact that social dialogue in Ireland was mostly consultative and that the social partners were rarely involved and consulted in relation to the european semester process by the government i regret to say that from our perspective at least not only has this situation not improved but is actually in our opinion deteriorated compared to developments in some other countries over the past year and not all of us has been down to COVID-19 furthermore we were given less time this year to respond a little over one day to comment on the national reform program a draft that didn't even address the implications of COVID-19 so disappointingly we see little or no evidence of our comments been taken into account in the national reform program other than being summarized in an appendix this is unfortunate but it is also factual it too very much welcomed the proclamation of the european pillar of social rights in 2017 we particularly welcomed principle eight which includes the statement that employers and unions shall be encouraged to negotiate and conclude collective agreements and matters relevant to them while respecting their autonomy and the right to collective action and we saw this principle reflected in the commission's draft council recommendation of december 2019 on the economic policy of the euro area and this included the explicit recommendation that the euro area member states take action individually and collectively to enhance the effectiveness of social dialogue and promote collective bargaining this recommendation was approved by the echo fin council on the 18th of february with the minister for finance and public and for public for finance and public expenditure representing Ireland and we acknowledge the statement in this year's CSRs to the effect that in cooperation with social partners the current context calls to continue upskilling and re-skilling efforts in order to meet the changing needs of the labour market or prepare the workforce for the climate energy and circular economy transition but we're disappointed that the commission did not explicitly reiterate its broader recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of social dialogue and we should be deeply concerned if this reflects a more general turning away of its commitment to the pillar of social rights enhancing the effectiveness of social dialogue and promoting collective bargaining agreements is not just about respecting fundamental rights it is now more than ever an economic imperative social dialogue and collective bargaining are in fact the way to minimize and overcome the economic fallout of COVID-19 research by the OECD shows that countries with inclusive collective bargaining systems such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands and Sweden are where up to 90% of private sector workers are covered by such collective agreements are associated with much better labour market outcomes than in Ireland in terms of higher employment lower unemployment rates particularly for young workers women and the low skilled but also greater wage equality and higher productivity so in short social dialogue and workers ability to collectively bargain in their workplaces in our opinion is vital workers work our voices must be heard and it is crucially that once and for all we deal with the issues of low pay and precarious work practices in this country only in this way can we ensure a sustainable and fair recovery for all and if the EU and the incoming government does not promote this approach it risks undermining the social cohesion and stability that currently exists but that will no doubt be under severe strain in the years ahead COVID-19 has shown us that the old ways of doing things were totally unsuitable in when faced with a major crisis it taught us also who our essential workers are and the fact that they are often undervalued and underpaid it taught us recently actually that we had to reduce the income of laid off workers to create an incentive to work and it taught us the necessity to reform our social security system and deal with this issue of low pay and indeed as has been rightly reflected in this is ours deal with the issues regarding our health system solving our housing crisis and creating a just transition so it has shown us that it's possible to do things that were previously considered impossible in my opinion the leadership challenge for us all is to build a labour market which is more participative sustainable and fairer to build a buoyant economy and a much less fractured society within a social Europe and for trade unions and workers our view is that can be no going back but I believe that we are ready to meet these challenges thank you chairman thank you Patricia and maybe we'll go straight over to the other big social partner in the shape of iBeck whose CEO Danny McCoy is going to give the next contribution thanks Danny thank you very much Dan and I suppose to get the social dialogue going I agree with most of what Patricia said which may be a surprise to people is that we're right we we have seen in this crisis that we need to actually have a social model reflective of the economy as it is not like how it used to be and I guess some of the things coming through from the CS or from the European Commission I think are reflective of that you raise one of those issues yourself Dan about surprise around the digital divide that exists in our society which probably we haven't fully seen the reverberations of that just yet but we certainly have some indication during the COVID crisis about differential access to education and ultimately to training which will have emerged during this quarter because of those digital divides that we have in our economy and also the fact that we need to look at the Irish economy as I said as it is is now primarily driven by services but also services embodied in the manufacturing process as well so that a lot of the divides about what were essential services and indeed essential workers I think will also need to be analysed as a result of this shock so for me the the main issues I'd like to just address from the country specific recommendations I think are reflective probably encapsulated by the sustainable development goals I think that collectively we should rally around those sustainable development goals now to look to see how we can build more more than just a consultant of process and I think that's for social dialogue and this new form of social dialogue I think has many advantages to us as as Patricia said we as actors in that have certainly seen the benefits of reacting quickly tragically some of the things that we have to react quickly on should have been in place going into this crisis because we had been planning for another event which is still with us which is brexit and so the temporary wage subsidy scheme thankfully today we see it as now exceeding the numbers on the hop but that should have been the case right from the start if we had a wage subsidy scheme in place for these critical events then we would have been able to keep people more attached to their employers and have an easier way of getting out of this so the social dialogue aspects that were in the previous ones I think are critical and that's something that the business community been calling for over the last number of years you see this in a global context this view of moving away from shareholder exclusive value to stakeholder may sound nice in the Harvard business review but the reality of it is it involves engagement working and participating with NGOs and trade unions in a context where there needs to be an allocation of resources and so for for Ireland which I think is kind of absent a bit perhaps understandably is that we don't have the luxury of a defined European Union and space we share now an island with a non-EU member state and that's going to be quite an interesting part of social dialogue as well Patricia indicated the start the all-island dimension of ICTU iBEC is also joint new the confederation bridge industry has a joint business council on the all island and one of the features that we'll see is that the labor market responses on which we find that our interaction with ICTU and iBEC has been on the labor employer economic forum this has raised issues not about centralized wage bargaining nor industrial disputes the two planks of social partnership for those who want to be comforted that we're not looking for a social partnership model as before but one that's actually now reflective of the future is that the labor market issues that we've been dealing with involve retirement age something to be a big issue in the program from government I'm sure but it also involves childcare involves the infrastructure and transportation systems so all of these issues actually require allocation of resources to which our model has failed over the last number of years to address even at the time of plenty so the dialogue really needs as I said the start really needs to reflect the island as it is now and I'm not sure that really comes out actually in the european's commission's assessment I see very little of reflecting the fact of the intangible assets that actually been driving the economy but where we find such nonsense as a GNI star which was a kneejerk reaction to 2015 in fact without covid I would suggest that 2020 was shaping up to be a GDP year equivalent of 2015 and I think you see that in the national accounts coming through but also in our exchequer returns in the last number of days so I'm not certain that the assessment of where we're at at the moment is actually specifically focused on the island as it is right now and I would encourage all of us all of the actors are on this call including those who are missing to it but we do need a social dialogue that's wider than just ibeck and it took clearly but on the issues of the labor market in particular and how that will be a medium for some of the issues of getting people back to work and to try to get the digital divide and the skills mediated through there I think the program for government with the support of everybody that's actually on the call needs to see a new form of social dialogue and that involves things like widening the tax base which is new commission and taxation but last point also on the social welfare it may not be centralized wage bargaining but it's clear to anybody that we now need to have a mediation of the resources through the labor market proposition and that the PRSI system the social insurance system is one of those mechanisms because people aren't just precarious with no pay anymore people now with high pay realize that events like covid means that anybody is potentially precarious and they found that the social welfare system that we had here was not fit for purpose good thank you dany so patricia dany i'm going to go to alan now but the question you both highlighted social dialogue and there seems to be quite a lot of agreement between you on that maybe when we come back some questions could you just make one or two points about how the social dialogue that you envisage going forward would differ from the pre 2008 social dialogue i just be interested to get get both your views on what might be different and particularly what might be better in the social dialogue you foresee for the future than the one we had pre 2008 so maybe one to mull while alan is giving his presentation alan you're going to give a powerpoint you're going to take the screen now so i hand the whole lot over to you and to look forward to your presentation thanks alan okay so let me uh share my screen is that working that's good okay so i'll move to this uh relatively quickly because i know people are going to want to get to some questions uh but let me start off with a sort of a a big theme uh in a sense and i suppose one of the things that the crisis has done uh it's that it has generated a lot of of reflection i suppose it's one of these sort of dramatic moments in history where we've kind of been shaken uh to the core and uh i've been sort of part of this reflection and uh one of one of the things that has done is sort of prompted me to think again about sort of the economics and economic policy and to just to think about this document on the country specific recommendations along these sort of lines so i think we just reflect very briefly market economies i think we increasingly recognize are very good at generating wealth uh at least if the state is providing certain inputs which are pretty critical there's infrastructure uh regulation and public services are some of the things that i've listed there and then market economies are really bad at doing certain other things for example they're really bad at redistribution they're really bad at providing security uh there i'm talking about things like income security housing and they're really really bad at providing environmental protection so i think when i really documents now such as the the cso's that's the sort of framework i'm thinking so where does policy sort of pushing with the economy in the market economy in terms of doing things well and where does it need to be sort of again pushing against where the economy is doing things rather badly and that's in a sense the way i'm going to structure the comments i should say it was kind of funny at the outset but danie and patricia seem to be agreeing with one another i think i'm going to be agreeing as well so i wonder are we on the threshold of another grouping disaster in our lives but we can we can address that when we come to the questions okay so on that issue then of sort of what the economy market economy does well and where we need to be pushing with that i think the most relevant recommendation in the cso's recommendation three and this is part of it and this has been ocean continuing to surprise as the board to companies know to be small and medium-sized enterprises especially true liquidity and this of course is what the government have essentially been doing to a certain extent and and we know they should be should be doing it but if i go to a sad another dimension and i think we can be sort of caught up very much with the immediate need but let's not lose sight of the broader policy considerations that have been floating around for quite a while and i think in the in the ira situation and again the the cso document makes reference to this the big challenge of course for sms has been the productivity gap between our you know foreign and domestic sectors so i guess what i would be saying is that yes let's provide the support but let's do it in such a way that's consistent with some of the policy issues that we've previously identified now just if i can make a small quick reference to to esri work on this so i think one of the things one of the nice things about being directed at the sri i'm going to do enough about our research anymore but i get to read a lot of research by other people and from sort of different teams within the esri some of the things that have been coming across i mean firstly that sms we have a high skill base in ireland but it seems in our in our sms that skill base does not be used to serve the effectively so we have a high rate of over-skilled employees with low rates of investment within our sms and we've low levels of connectivity between our foreign multinationals so let me just sort of say that yes let's provide the supports but let's provide the supports in a sort of a targeted in a very intelligent way and i i put the sort of the challenge at the last point there in the slide this is the ongoing challenge for industrial policy this is always there and it probably always will be there how do you support the firms of the future by allowing non non viable firms to pass away i still think we need to keep that in mind you know even in the context for we're trying to be charitable towards businesses that are under pressure now let me come to the second point i mentioned at the outset this no redistribution and providing security now i'm going to discuss recommendation two in that sort of the context i could have chosen to discuss it in terms of the more working with the economy but let me deal with it here so recommendation two makes reference to things like support employment through developing skills address the risk that you should provide including in the education sector and increase the provision of social and affordable housing so again some of the the things that have been mentioned by Patricia and Danny now just a point here that i that i want to stress so here's the right research this is our tax and welfare research has contributed to demonstrating this fact that the Irish welfare and tax system works really well at combating inequality so again a lot of you would have seen that this is right work and that when you do this analysis you see that Ireland moves from one of the more unequal OECD countries into the middle range and that we have this system that works very very well okay that's true there's a couple of points that i i just want to add again from ESRI research that i that i think are relevant so the work i just talked about looks at households in a point of time but there's many other dimensions to equality and i think the crisis has gotten rise to some of these so the first is the issue of inequality over time okay and this is the question about like you know if you're born in Ireland in an in an unfavorable socioeconomic situation what are the possibilities that that you will move out of that over time so in a sense that you'll move up the income distribution over time do we have a society that facilitates that i have to say in the institute we run the growing up in Ireland survey which looks at the situations of kids and one of the most depressing and striking things is that as you you know the results of this come true and true you just sort of see disadvantage beginning early in life and then accumulating and then this as i said there are other dimensions of inequality and gender is just one that i'll talk about the relevance of all this is the crisis it's highly likely that the crisis has widened educational inequalities i think we all have a sense of this that homeschooling will have worked very well in some families and disastrously in others it's not on for a period of time now so there's a possibility that we're just you know watching those sort of socioeconomic gaps widening as we speak inequalities in employment prospects again we've known for recessions for many many years that lower skill folks are more likely to lose their jobs and of course once you lose your job the fear of you becoming long-term unemployed becomes becomes really acute and then the gender inequalities there's again buckets of evidence now coming from also over the world that at one level women have been more likely to lose jobs just the nature of a lot of jobs but for even for women in the home this horrible ongoing reality that work on the home front and in caring has been sort of you know has a gender dimension in it there's no doubt that the crisis is being talked for on women policy the sort of sort of skills development the digital divide the sort of things said in the the the recommendation all of these are really really critical and we really need to think creatively about how we're going to to deal with it i just mentioned something very very briefly on on healthcare one of the things that has come out of the crisis this sort of sense that technology and digitalization has moved on and in the health care area there is the sort of sense that well one of the things we can do is we can make health care delivery more productive more efficient if we move to a more digitally based interaction that could well be the case it's just the one thing we don't know is whether or not that would be different for patient outcomes on aggregate or across different votes coming to the last couple of slides now okay so environmental protection again mentioned that another area where that where the market is really terrible and the CSRs include references to the possible green investments so let me just say if there is going to be a stimulus package let it be green and i know Declan mentioned the fiscal rules earlier on but let me say i think one possible advantage here is with let me just sort of say the suspension of fiscal rules there is the possibility that i think we can get much more rational investment strategies in the sense that the state can actually go out and borrow and invest without constraints to the fiscal rules and really make progress in terms of green projects okay so my concluding slide then so i said at the outset that the crisis is generated reflection of the goals of economic and social policy is true but i could have also said that it is it is generated reflection of the role of the state everything i think that has happened has suggested that the role of the state might have to be bigger and there is a relevance here where the the commission have in about broadening the tax base but last point if the role of the state needs to be bigger in our economy and our society taxes will have to go up i think if we're having that debate at some stage i sincerely hope we can have that debate about tax and that it's not confused in some sense with austerity i have a point there adjustment to the new normal could be bigger state and a bigger tax burden so with that i'll leave it down okay asking a follow-up in terms of what you um the government's response to support and i know this is different from the states do you there are big risks for the tax barrier giving excessive support to private companies you have a view on what's happened to date i mean i i think to date the the approach has been appropriate in the sense that it was an emergency approach and that you certainly wanted to be in a position that you were reaching out and that you were doing as much as you possibly could and i don't have an answer to this okay but i think it is it is the standard constraint and challenge in industrial policy about how you identify and how you support the viable companies but not in a sense exhausting a huge amount of resources to propping up those which are ultimately going to fail so i'm not saying i have a solution to it but i think it is a real real challenge and a potential problem okay thank you so a couple of questions we got a quite a few here start off where Fergal McNamara from ESB straight forward one how to make sure in a practical way that the EU level stimulus is green oriented Declan there's a couple more specific ones for you Derval Brennan of the Southern Regional Assembly asks about allocation of resources by region don't know if you have any particular thoughts on that one Declan Donald McManus of the Irish Council for Social Housing also pointing one to you Declan in Brussels around social housing he acknowledges it's a national competence but wandering around state aid rules whether things can be changed at EU level to allow to influence the social housing element Declan i don't know if you have any thoughts on that if you're i think you're still with us but if anyone else wants to come in Alan i see you're unmuted there's you're you're muted no anyone want to come in on the the green aspect and how to in practical terms make the changes ensure that the the the green agenda is included I just give a quick response Dan on on the green issue sort of a confession as an economist if you go back a number of years ago and I know Danny worked on this when it when he was working narrower economic fields but we used to think carbon taxes could solve everything that all you have to do from an economics perspective is get the price of the emissions correct and everything else would be fine the longer my life goes on and I look at the environmental issue the more I become convinced that carbon taxes absolutely have a role here with major investments system you know systemic change is really going to be required here as well so I think there there is an opportunity now to look and partly at the scale of the challenge that we're now facing in in terms of greenhouse gas emissions that I really do think we need to get a handle on this and so the sort of public transport investments that have been muted for many many years I think are very very appealing the retrofit the redesign of buildings all of those sort of things and I think it's an area where a lot of thought has been given so to use that old phrase you know the shovel ready projects I think a lot of the projects are there are ready to go you go back six months ago one of the great concerns was is that we didn't have the labour force to achieve the certain amount of these objections but I think now through stimulus packages EU included there is the money the labour may require a degree of retraining but I think that's possible but I think getting involved in those major sort of retrofit and public transport type initiatives I think are really critical and it's one of these things there is an opportunity now it's one of they're not like good news but it's something we can see gotcha Declan to those two specific ones I don't know the regional allocation of funding social housing I don't know if you have anything specific to say on those or any more general points responses to what's been said so far Declan over to you yeah maybe on the how to ensure the package will be green I mean the commission has been clear that when member states make requests to access funding for example under this new resilience and recovery facility priority will be given to you know two requests from member states that go that are green and digital and you know we have a long experience with in discussing with member states these types of projects you know member states have or in the process of submitting energy and climate transition plans we've questions are already underway with member states on the next programming period for structural funds structural funds investment funds so I think there's a lot of you know we will you know member states will surely be anxious to make sure that they can access as much of this funding as they as they can and priority will be given to those requests which which go in the green and digital direction secondly if you take some of the lending instruments for example invest in you where we would take a guarantee from the community budget and then use that to crowd in private investment a lot of this again will go to projects that are in the green and digital field and here we could also build upon the work that has been done by my colleagues in Digi Fizma on sustainable investment and here you know where you know the sort of methodologies and typology of what constitutes green projects what constitutes green green bonds and green issuance so I think we're putting in place the the infrastructure that will allow us much much better to you know in an accurate way tag investment projects as being genuinely genuinely green maybe a final point it's also perhaps worth considering on the financing side how we could use the initiative to advance the green agenda so I mean the commission now will have to borrow large amounts of funds on financial markets and you know consideration could be given to at least part of that being being financed through green bonds so I think there's many dimensions through which we can advance the green agenda here in terms of the the social housing of course social policy does remain a national competence but I mean we have seen with the social pillar and that there is scope to use the semester use dialogue and exchanges at European level to advance the social agenda now also I think you know there will be scope for countries but I mean in terms of making requests for additional funding going forward I mean why not invest it why why not use that in part to to advance social social housing and there's lots which could be done in terms of retrofitting existing social housing to in terms of their energy efficiency it's also of course you know housing is extremely like you know it's a labor intensive business so it's precisely the types of you know labor rich or employment rich investments which are which which look like they would be you know very beneficial at the current juncture on the regional question perhaps I could perhaps you could just be a bit clear on the question itself is it regional within Ireland or regional across member states I think generally across member states the nuts 11 I'm afraid the question is gone now as I as I moved at all the agenda but there was a specific mention of nuts 11 that that detailed geographical breakdown perhaps okay look so let me let me go back to Patricia and Danny on on social dialogue you know very briefly Patricia how would you see social dialogue the sort of social dialogue that you want to see differing from pre 2008 you're muted there Patricia you'll just have to I'll tell you so so I I think that it could be very different I mean I don't see social dialogue in the way we're speaking about a dealing with pay issues you know there is a perfectly operable from the public point of view there's a negotiating unit there public services committee of Congress and the government as the employer so they get on and do their business in the normal way there has been over years now local discussions at the various company levels and so on we have some sector employment agreements we some registered employment agreements so I don't see that being a topic on social dialogue and I also think that you know the notion that we in in some shape or form replace or attempt to undermine the eruptus and the elected members to parliament and to send it I don't think any of that should should formulate or be seen to be operating I think social dialogue is about attempting to influence the policy decisions that need to be either redeveloped or adjusted if so if you take housing if you take any of those so Alan I wouldn't necessarily over interpret the the agreement between myself and Danny because I would say that we probably agree in principle but when we come down to get to the details of what it is we want to achieve I would imagine there would be robust enough conversations but what we do and we've had this conversation individually with one another but we do agree with a good strong social dialogue model whereby you can set out what what you think are the ingredients to develop or adjust a policy in a particular area is the best way to do it and I think that would be an additional an addition to politicians and indeed to public officers who are developing that but I think all of that dialogue and so on would be an addition rather than than something that would be regressive so I would see that not replacing anything or or the the position of eruptus people or anything else I would see that as being some very helpful to them and an additional to them in terms of ultimately they have the responsibility and we're not trying to in any shape or form create a model prize to replace that. Danny? We may as well disagree with Patricia at least you think it's all sweetness and light between us. I think the social dialogue is different to the social partnership to use those terminologies because where we find ourselves are completely different. I think a future social dialogue would be allocating resources not from the first social partnership which actually was about the individual. It was about taxation and getting people first of all to get them a job to allow them to stay in Ireland and to take some of the returns from their efforts to be allowed them to make choices at their own individual level. I think to Alan's point the market economy has delivered on that and in fact Ireland's been one of the most spectacular beneficiaries of globalization. I think where things are beginning to go with SKU is that we don't actually provide the public services now in sufficient quantity. They actually don't pay enough taxes in terms of a commission taxation needs to broaden the base and so that some of the features that have really come up here is in terms of the income protection model that our social model isn't actually allocating resources provide those collective goods like public infrastructure to provide the connection between the business and the households. So actually I think that's where social dialogue is going to be around the individual receiving it as an individual wage. I think it will be around the societal creation of services and that's where it's going to be more dramatic. And the one last thing I would say is that the reason I think that the European social semester and European project is that we know from the past Ireland missed out on the industrialization in the middle of last century so missed out on some of the problems and how things were mediated. The social dialogue structure and social partnership is a very European context which we made up on the hoof and reaction to taturism actually in Ireland I would argue for the last social partnership. This time around that whole idea of individualism and actually having representative groups I don't think we need to think any more long-term than just last year. Think about what happened the Irish Farmers Association and not being able to mobilize when you had difficulties around collections around the beef disputes. There's a real danger when things end up on the street that societies really suffer from not having mechanisms by which to get the social actors together quickly. And so we should not be blaséing this country about the fact of some of the forces that we've seen go from the street into some of the actions. I think that our system is actually immune from some of those social forces and so the absence I think of social dialogue has been a dangerous mode for us over the last 12 months and in fact we might have gotten lucky in the one thing that COVID actually demonstrated the need for that kind of collective action because there is a lot of precariousness not just about no pay but there's a lot of precariousness in our society and in our model right now and I think social dialogue can be helpful in that regard. Okay I've got to change tack. Danny keep keep throw this one to you if young Jenkins and an economist with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform asks if workers losing their jobs in some sectors that the more vulnerable ones right now could move into construction where there was until recently a labour shortage so do you see from your knowledge of those industries do you see that being possible and a follow-up is this recession going to hit the non-residential construction sector and residential construction sectors to the point where there won't be a demand for increased labour? Any thoughts around that? So difficult enough questions actually but I'll offer a view may not be accurate really it's around the retraining re-skilling and having that capacity to ensure that we can move people between sectors in kind of transferable skills because increasingly the sophistication even in construction is not the lump of labour idea of the past quite a sophisticated model so the answer to that I would think is yes that there should be a lot of complementary energy between these skill sets that labour versus a tech person's clearly distinction is there but they're not as extreme as they would have been in the past and the other one which I think is just very short term one of the features we're finding even the last three weeks is that because we know there's a lot of savings there's going to be a lot of demand the demand side of the economy is going to come back really fast problem is going to be on the supply side in terms of workers showing up because a lot of people have left Ireland during this crisis may or may not be coming back and so those who are unemployed in one sector may find that very quickly there is going to be quite a heavy demand for labour in the economy pretty quickly now that may be a triumph of hope over experience but right in the short term I think that we might see some of those labour shortages develop quite significantly again that we get back on the rails fairly quickly here okay so I might come back to you on that point about the skills percentage share of the population with lower digital skills a lot of questions coming in around that Kevin Callumann the second general of the foresee union asks about labour market activation programs and whether these can be funded by EU level funding and new EU level funding we've got a question from Brido Brian of the Irish National Organization for Unemployed around the digital skills piece as well so could I ask you Declan to maybe elaborate a bit more on the active labour market programs the digital gap Danny's very upbeat view that we could have labour market shortages rather than mass unemployment yeah no thank you so I mean the the figure I referred to is one of the indicators we monitor in the social social scoreboard and basically what it says is that 53 percent of the adult population have overall basic or above basic level of digital skills but that compares to an EU average of 58 percent so Ireland would be five percentage points below the EU average so it does point you know to some some polarization there's a many many very highly skilled people in Ireland with digital skills but it probably you know obviously there's an age component there but I suspect that quite a lot of this could also be an urban rural divide and I guess there is also an income an income divide as well so yeah I mean you know I think there's also you know you know there's been some some of the surveys which have been carried out in response to homeschooling or online online classes you know 40 percent of of principals are reporting you know that you know are talking about the existence of a digital divide within within their schools so I think this would be you know it's I think what some of the other panelists have been talking about in the sense that redistribution or inequality is not just income inequality it's it's access to to IT and having the skills to succeed and thrive in a modern economy now of course the EU for a long time has been very very active in supporting active labor market policies upskilling retraining notably through the the european social fund and indeed it's this type of project which could receive top-up financial support from this additional recovery and resilience fund I think there's precisely the type of project now I can't be more precise than that because it's at the moment it's a proposal all of the nitty-gritty details will have to be agreed and worked out but clearly you know this would definitely that you know this this these types of programs that you refer to definitely go in the direction of the digital agenda which the commissioner has been advocating and also the skills agenda which which is in the process of being revised in the course of this year so I think the short answer is yes but okay the details we will have to work out good so we're about four minutes left Patricia Danny if you might have any closing just closing thoughts but I'll go to Alan just on the issue of that question about active labor market programs the skill the skills the digital divide um you have any thoughts in that area and were you surprised also by that chart of Declan on the digital skills but let me I was surprised when I saw it first which I think was about six months ago and I think it might mean that another IIEA event and I do remember a discussion around the time where we were interrogating the data and I think it might have been based on a question like how would you rate your skills or whatever like that and you know there's this thing in Ireland that if you ask people about their health they'd say they're brand they're very positive you ask them about their skills they can't be quite negative but I think what Declan said is probably closer to the truth okay in the sense that we think in terms of an Ireland with the Googles and the Facebooks and everything and we think about it as this tremendously technologically advanced society but I think that that average figure is probably disguising to extremes but on active labour market programs I mean Declan again is right I think it could be the case now in Ireland we associate EU expenditure with roads you know motorways and stuff like that because we see the signs as we're going by but the reality is is that a lot of people who went through sort of you know false training programs and other if they had a sign on their back saying funded by the EU there would be much greater visibility about the money that the European Union spent in the 90s and in the early 90s and of course you know in terms of infrastructural investment human capital is just as important as other components and again we know a lot through research from people like Philip O'Connell formerly the SRI and others about what works in this area and what doesn't and so I made the point earlier on about sort of shovel ready green projects there is also a lot of sort of you know readily applicable human capital projects as well whether from EU funding or domestic funding so lots of potential work okay Patricia Danny if I don't need to throw put you on the spot but if you do have anything if you don't as well I would just say that I hello yep we can hear you I just think that it is a we have a moment we're at a particular juncture and we have an opportunity and I think we should use the opportunity and from my perspective we have the potential to make a strong recovery but it's not just the recovery of the economy it's the recovery of our society and I think that we should push equal emphasis on that so the place that we need to get to is we need to get to a place where everybody has equal access to a health service everybody who needs a home has one our social security system could be reformed to underpin a proper income for people so those sort of elements our economy is well capable of delivering that our society needs it to happen we need to focus on you know getting rid of the inequalities that are there we could go into with that in most in a lot of detail so from our perspective social dialogue officer offers us an opportunity to do that and when we talk about just transition I have to say we need to do an awful lot more work to get just transition into a space where it's going to work for us because the board of mono example tells us that it's not working for us at the moment so we we we have a lot of work to do well we've assembled a moment and we've an opportunity to improve and to remedy not just the economy but to remedy our society fractures as well thanks patricia donnie do you want to yeah I think I just echo that same point really it's that this time around we know that this is the wealthy society and even in the last couple of months to transfer from the state into the households we see savings were incredibly high another three billion uh gone up in savings in the month so in other words the solution is within and so a bit like the semester itself the coordination among irish society uh offers us this opportunity it's not it's not like the great financial situation at all it's probably the metric opposite in the irish context is that we have the resources but we don't have the channels in which to move that down this is this is a classic galbrae problem of private affluence and public squalor and that's an easier thing to solve than the corollary okay done that upbeat no before thanking everyone I'd just like to flag to to participants and the audience here uh we've got a very busy week over the rest of this week we've got louis uh de gwendos the vice president of the european central bank uh president of all and michael de higgins and ray mcginnis the vice president of the european parliament over the course of this week alone so a busy week and some great presentations to come so with that let me thank minister macintee deklin um patricia danie allen and our partners the european commission for for this session today hope you found it interesting and thank you all for attending and thank you for participating thank you