 Fel fwy ffrifiad, gweithio'r geisio ymgyrch. Mae'n fawr i'n gweithio bwysig ddod o ddod i'r Gwlad Brynddon, i ddod i'r Ffraeg i'r Unedig Ffafel Yng nghaerfod mwyafio i'r Gwlad Yng Nghymru, i ddod i'r ffordd ymdangos i'r gyfrifio, i ddod i'r cyfosibolion i'r ffraeg i'r Gwlad Ynghymru. Rydyn ni'n dechrau cael y cyfosibol mwyaf, ac oedd o'r gweithio'r gweithio'r ein bodi'r llwydd Cymdeithas ydym wedi bod maes cyfnodd maes yma ar gyfer y cwrsau.. ..a bod y cwrsau yma i'r cyfeiriaeth a'r llunegau ffarnodd yn cael eu greu... ..yno, i chi'n fawr angen i g weeklynol i chi ddechrau... ..i chi'n gwybod ffarnodd i'r cyfnodd. Ac flwyddyn ar gyfer y cyfnodd, ac mae'r gwaith sy'n gwybod.. ..yna'r gyffredin datlion gyflym. Mae'n grannu ei dda i'r iawn. I would like to thank you, John, for your introduction. I found that article penned by, I'm not sure whom, but I suspect I may have an idea in the Farmers Journal. It sounded like maybe my headier days when I was a young for the gail, but as you know the wheels of change grind one down and maybe I'm a little bit more moderate in my thinking and my views these days. But it is really interesting to look back and to reflect on that period when we joined the European communities as we approached that point and the transformation that has happened in this country since then. I'm very proud to be associated with the Irish presidency at this point. As you know we reached the midway point of our presidency just a week ago. And this invitation to address you here really gives me a good opportunity to review some of the progress that we have made to date in reaching the objectives which we set out for ourselves at the beginning of our presidency and our presidency programme. And also I suppose to look at the remaining time and the perhaps acceleration of work that needs to happen in certain areas and on certain priorities. I think it also gives us an opportunity to look at the challenges that remain to see how we can be more focus, more targeted and ultimately contribute to delivering on the core objectives of our presidency. Which are of course, as I'm sure you're aware by now, promoting stability, growth and job creation. That has been the driving focus if you like of our presidency and will continue to be until the end of June. Without, I mean it's always difficult to praise oneself for one's own administration but I think I do have to say that we are as a government very satisfied with the progress that we have made to date. But of course we are aware that we have a lot of work yet to do. There are many challenges that remain and a lot of our big ticket items will have to be addressed in the concluding part of our presidency. So the work certainly goes on. We remain firmly committed to ensuring that this, our seventh presidency, leaves a positive, strong and lasting legacy for Ireland but also for the whole of the European Union. That's a pretty big task and one that certainly we all feel on our shoulders at this point. Since entering office the government as you know has worked intensively to ensure that firstly we succeeded in re-engaging on the European stage, re-engaging with the institutions with our European partners and firmly letting our partners know that Ireland is very much in business and very much back in town. But we have also been working intensively on our presidency preparations so that we could hit the ground running on the 1st of January when we took over the presidency. Just to give you an idea of the amount and the intensity of preparations when I was appointed European Affairs Minister in March 2011, pretty much immediately I took over a group coordinating the policy agenda for our presidency which brings together all government departments. And helped us ultimately to build and develop our presidency programme so almost two years of work from our point of view and indeed some of that work had even begun at official level before we came into government. So it's a pretty labour intensive task and one that has taken up a lot of time. I think it's fair to say that the pace and the volume of work required a strong investment of time, of resources and in terms of preparation by ministers particularly who are leading councils and also by our very very dedicated group of civil servants who are chairing council working groups. And I can tell you that that is a pretty heavy agenda. So over the past year in particular we placed a strong emphasis on building those close contacts with the key institutions as I mentioned. Particularly the European Parliament who as you know have a much enhanced role since we agreed and put in place a Lisbon Treaty. So that those contacts and that preparatory work, that ground work has been hugely important in preparing us in terms of our capacity to deliver on our goals. So this means that we were able to engage in negotiations with the Parliament and indeed with other institutions from the very start of the presidency. We had built the relationships, the chairs of the committees, the rapporteurs, the key people knew our ministers, knew what our presidency was about, were familiar with our priorities and knew what we wanted to achieve in that six months. And so it meant that we could start with excellent working relations and hopefully start as we mean to go on in terms of achieving our objectives. Before setting out the progress on our key objectives so far, I just would like to stress for a moment the importance of this presidency for Ireland. The objectives of the presidency programme and the programme for government dovetail, they really do meld very, very well together, probably better than any previous presidency. Because, as I said, making progress on delivering stability, growth and jobs is absolutely critical for our own long-term national interest but also for the overall interest of the European Union. So there is very little distinction at the moment between Ireland's national interest and the European agenda. And so I think for us it's been a very pleasant task in building priorities for the presidency around what are very, very obvious priorities for us here on the domestic scene. The government is also working to ensure that the results of the presidency and the way in which we manage the presidency during our term in office will contribute to rebuilding our reputation internationally as a competent and an effective international actor. And that's very important for a country that had huge reputational damage inflicted upon it in recent years that had somewhat become semi-engaged or disengaged on the European stage and indeed on the wider international stage. So we are really using the presidency as an opportunity to showcase Ireland what we can do, what we can achieve, how we can manage the agenda and of course also looking to the future beyond the end of June, how we can use these contacts and these very crucial relationships in the longer term to maintain a strong engagement with EU FERS and to ensure that the Irish voice is heard at the table in an effective way in all institutions with all of our European partners in the medium and long term as well. Ireland obviously sees its future at the very heart of a strengthened EU and so our presidency gives us the opportunity to re-establish ourselves as a constructive and an active EU participant and that's very important to us. Since the presidency started, Ireland has held 25 formal and informal council meetings chaired by government ministers. There have been two European councils so far where we have of course been represented by the Thysiwch, including the most critical meeting of EU leaders which took place in early February on concluding the EU's future budget for the next seven years. The so-called MFF, the multi-annual financial framework. Irish officials have chaired more than a thousand working party meetings since January, believe it or not, all of which have been aimed at driving the EU work agenda forward with a very, very strong emphasis on proposals which support growth and jobs. The results achieved by the presidency today are based on hard work, on patience and on carefully negotiated compromises which is the essence of what the EU is all about. That's how the EU moves forward and it has been the model, if you like, since its very inception. As a presidency, we're working to ensure that all voices are heard from the programme of citizens dialogues which we are running and I participated with one in that loan last night to our ministers listening to the views and concerns of members of the European Parliament and of course of our colleagues ministers from other member states. I'll give you an illustrative list of key decisions which have been reached under the Irish presidency during the first three months in office. They include the famous budget, the MFF, which has been agreed now by heads of state and government. I'll talk about the parliament in a few minutes. They include the youth guarantee, economic governance measures, banking union legislation, the common agricultural policy reform package and dozens of other pieces of important legislation. We are determined to drive growth and jobs in Europe but the foundations on which economic recovery are built have to be stable and that's why stability is a big focus for us. As a presidency, we're working hard to take fundamental and long-term decisions that will restore confidence in public finances in member states and indeed in the European banking sector. In February, the Irish presidency helped to broker a really crucial agreement with the European Parliament which had been deadlocked. This is the two-pack of economic governance legislation which complements of course the six-pack which was agreed over a year ago. That is designed to improve budgetary and economic coordination amongst euro area members. It's a really key piece of the euro area's economic architecture and will further contribute to financial and economic stability. I think if we've learned any lesson during the euro crisis it is that what decisions that are taken in Dublin or Athens or Berlin or Paris all impact on each other. Every member states, public finances have a direct impact on those of other member states. The economic decisions that we take, the budgetary policy decisions that we take matter a great deal within the euro currency area and therefore we've had to put in place much better oversight and much better scrutiny and the two-pack is another step in that road. During the first half of the presidency of course we also implemented the European semester which is based on a roadmap of actions which we developed in late 2012 which were adopted by the General Affairs Council in December and which now formed the basis for the semester process for the first half of 2013. This process and some of you may not be so familiar with it, it aims to promote stronger economic and fiscal coordination and to ensure that member states undertake the necessary reforms to restore fiscal health, to strengthen budgetary discipline and to deliver smart and sustainable jobs and growth within the Europe 2020 framework. So it's to pull all of those elements together and following discussions at the March European Council we concluded the first part of the process. Member states are now preparing their national reform and jobs plans with a review which will inform clear country specific recommendations which will be agreed at the final European Council of our presidency which will take place in June. So that will be the culmination of the process when the country specific recommendations are adopted and just to note on that because I think this is a really important framework. It's in its third year of existence and it's finding its feet, it's a new process but a very, very important one where there is a little bit of peer review if you like of each other. But one thing that concerned me a little bit when we were coming into the role of presidency was that our national parliament were not so engaged in this process and obviously governments take this seriously but maybe national parliamentarians weren't engaging as fully as they might. So I took the initiative with Commissioner Sefcovic who's responsible for inter-institutional relations to write to the speakers, the Cankorla, if you like of all of the parliaments around Europe, asking them and calling on them to engage fully in the process and to engage in debating in their chambers the country specific recommendations. So that governments have a clear idea of what their parliaments expect when it comes to the June European Council. It's not really, I suppose, something we can instruct or direct parliaments to do but it's something that I think is really, really important. Members of parliament elected representatives have to take responsibility for these crucial decisions and as we know in the past it's often in the case that national politicians blame Europe for a lot of things but don't necessarily accept responsibility. So we're just trying to encourage a little bit more of a sense of responsibility and ownership of this process as well as holding governments to account for what they agree at the June Council. So hopefully that will be a little initiative that will generate some activity in national parliaments right across the 27 Member States. Making progress on restoring the health of the banking sector is, I think comes as no surprise, is another key challenge and a key priority. The proposals that make up the EU's banking union package are a major priority for Ireland's presidency and they are designed to prevent a recurrence of the problems that have blighted the banking sector in a number of Member States including our own in recent years. So we're very, very pleased to have reached a very important agreement in recent weeks with the European Parliament on the capital requirements directive which will ensure that European banks hold enough good quality capital to withstand possible economic and financial shocks. The directive will also enforce, and I think this is of major interest to citizens, greater transparency and discourage excessive risk taking including through the restrictions on bankers pay which are introduced. And I'm pleased to say that finance ministers signaled their political agreement to this deal at the beginning of March. So it's well on the way to conclusion and that is a really crucial deal and one that is not without controversy as I'm sure you're well aware. Work is also progressing on the single supervisory mechanism which of course is the core element of the banking union proposals. And it is a vital step in breaking the link between banks and sovereigns. It's the first step if you like and it paves the way for other crucial decisions that must be taken at EU level. With these proposals coming over the line we will now focus our efforts during the remainder of the presidency on making progress on the bank resolution and recovery directive and other legislation in the financial services sector. So there is a lot of work to be done but we are on target in terms of the progress made to date. The EU needs to ensure that it provides the greatest support possible to foster economic recovery across Europe including by reducing regional disparities and of course tackling unemployment black spots of which unfortunately there are many. So the agreement reached at the February European Council on the multi annual financial framework the EU's budget for 2014 to 2020 which amounts to nearly one trillion euro of funding for all of the key policy areas. This is a key element in contributing to Europe's economic recovery and of course to future growth and indeed to social cohesion and we know all about it because we've benefited from it for many many years in this country. The supports in the budget in areas such as cohesion and regional funding can make a real and positive difference to economic recovery and job creation in communities in every single member state. We are satisfied that the budget is very well focused on this occasion and tackling youth unemployment is a key focus of the budget. Boosting key growth areas such as research and innovation, maintaining solidarity of course with less developed member states and with regions which have been particularly severely affected by the economic crisis. These are all important priorities of the budget and I think the balance that we have struck is quite good but of course the next step is securing the ascent of the European Parliament to the budget which will remain one of the main challenges facing our presidency during the second half of our term in office. The Taoiseach has met with the President of the European Parliament and the President of the Commission on a number of occasions in recent months to try to move the process forward and I've obviously been as a representative of the presidency in the European Parliament. I have been meeting regularly with the MEPs there and in fact the Tonish then I will travel to Brussels tomorrow for our first official trilog on the MFF. This work is intensifying and we are very hopeful and confident that we will be able to secure agreement on the MFF by June. For us that is hugely important for some very obvious reasons. There are 70 pieces of legislation that have to be enacted in order for the budget to come into effect on 1 January 2014. We have made huge strides on most of those elements, most of those pieces of legislation but of course they cannot be concluded until the budget is in place. So it's very very important that we do stick to our target and that we do complete it by June. And as I said, securing agreement on the budgetary process is crucial to a lot of programs and just some examples. Obviously the common agricultural policy that's the one of most keen interest to us in Ireland because 85% of our seats come from the cap. Also the fisheries reform proposal cannot come into being until the budget is in place. Erasmus for all and I'm pleased to say that Erasmus which is something that's familiar to all of us in this country. Many of us, many of our peers, our children, our cousins have benefited from the Erasmus program. It's one of the few strands of funding that has actually increased in this budget. That's dependent on agreement with the parliament as is Horizon 2020 and all of the investment research programs. So they all have a major potential to impact positively on the whole area of economic growth and indeed social development within the union. So it's a big big priority for us and one that we've made good progress on but we now have to bring it to fruition by the end of the presidency. And crucially the decision which was reached in February includes a 6 billion euro funding allocation for a new youth employment initiative. So we're delighted to steer through political agreement in February, late February on the new youth guarantee. So this I think will stand as one of the achievements of our presidency given the very, very high rate of youth unemployment at the moment. The guarantee very briefly it aims to ensure that young people under 25 who are out of work will receive an offer either of employment, continuing education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship. That's a big and ambitious goal but I think that the political will is there to do it and there is now some dedicated funding also to support that. If it's successfully implemented the youth guarantee can contribute to increasing employment hopefully to reducing early school leaving and also to ensure that jobless young people avoid poverty traps and social exclusion. So it's a very important priority for us. We will also continue to work very, very hard in the second half of our presidency on measures that will reduce youth unemployment including through greater access to education and training under programs like Erasmus for All which I mentioned. The presidency is also working on a broad range of measures which are aimed at providing much stronger support to foster growth and research and innovation particularly where we have the potential for the EU to become a global leader. So we have to invest wisely and smartly. We all know that resources are limited but we are trying to be smart in how we go about it. So we will be applying our own national expertise if you like our experience of using research and innovation funding to underpin the growth that we can push forward through the Horizon 2020 programme and we consider that to provide the potential to really drive a world-class research and innovation hub in Europe. And that of course will contribute to boosting growth and boosting the knowledge economy. We're all aware that researchers across Europe must be able to access funding with a minimum of red tape. Likewise SMEs which have great potential to generate growth and jobs must also benefit from funding for research and innovation. So that's why we're focusing in our presidency on programmes such as the Competitiveness for SMEs programme better known as COSME which is all about enabling SMEs to access funding and to be able to benefit from the sort of programmes that are available at EU level. We're also as you know focusing very much on the opportunities for growth and jobs that arise from completing the single market and a number of the measures under single market act 1 have still yet to be completed. We were very pleased and honoured to sign in February the unified patent court agreement which will provide businesses and in particular again Europe's small and medium sized enterprises with a central one stop shop for registering and for protecting patents. It is long overdue and I think it's a very significant achievement although we can't claim credit for it entirely. I think the Cyprus presidency and presidencies before us put a huge effort into that but it's a really important decision. Further advances in this area I think will deliver multiple benefits which will spur business growth and job creation and is very much at the heart and core of our agenda. Likewise the digital single market we've made good progress to date on the complex data protection issue and we're pretty satisfied with the progress that has been made in that area so far. We're also working very hard on the e-signatures e-identification agenda. This is hugely important for consumer confidence for business confidence in transacting online. It's not easy, it's very complex but we have invested a huge amount of time at official level in bringing this agenda forward. While we are working on strengthening the single market we are also looking outside of the EU. We know that over the years to come 90% of the growth that will take place globally will not occur in the EU so we have to exploit the opportunities that exist in the whole area of external trade. We are putting a particular emphasis on the EU-US trade agreement so we were very pleased with the progress that's been made to date. You'll be aware of President Obama's commitment the fact that the US administration has now begun preparing its negotiating position for the EU-US transatlantic trade and investment partnership. Likewise our officials have begun working on preparing and developing the commission proposal which would form the basis of the EU's negotiating position and we hope that we will be on target to launch those negotiations by June. That's an ambitious target, one that I think a lot of people might have considered unrealistic at the start of our presidency but it is looking increasingly realistic as the days go on. We've made a lot of progress already so we're very positive about that. I'm conscious Chairman that I'm going on and I want to leave some time for questions and answers but just a few other points on the trade agenda. Negotiations with Japan also started in March and the EU is currently negotiating on trade issues with Canada, Singapore, India, China, Thailand and ASEAN. So there is a lot happening in the external trade agenda. In the area of agriculture policy the Irish presidency has successfully concluded negotiations on a general approach on the cap and the Council of Agriculture Ministers chaired by Ireland agreed its position on the commission's reform proposals just a few weeks ago. So our objective is to secure an inter-institutional agreement by the end of June and that agreement will deal of course with a range of complex issues including sensitive ones in relation to direct payments which again I think most of you will be familiar with and we're also working intensively on the reform proposals for the fisheries policy. So a lot of progress has been made there and we're hoping to conclude most of that by the end of June. In other policy areas such as transport we've made good progress, the informal ministerial meetings on environment and energy will be hosted the week after next in Dublin Castle by ministers Hogan and Rabbit and they will contribute to the presidency's ambitious agenda in these areas and of course will also feed into the European Council which is going to focus on energy in May. On the enlargement front which is the area that I have been leading on for the presidency we're working to ensure that we can make progress on the accession process in a range of countries. We hope and believe that we will open a chapter with Turkey the first in almost three years before the presidency concludes. We're also looking forward to making similar progress with Montenegro's accession. Obviously with the ratification of Croatia's accession treaty by Slovenia, the final members say to do so at the beginning of the month, Croatia I'm pleased to say will join on the 1st of July and the presidency has been fully supportive of Croatia's accession to the EU and we are particularly pleased that the ratification of the treaty was successfully completed during our term. The issues that I have outlined there are many more and I could talk about enlargement all day but I would like to just say that this is a very, believe it or not, concise overview of a very, very vast agenda that we're working on and I would simply like to say that this is a hugely important period for Ireland, for the government, for the country in terms of re-establishing ourselves and we have a fantastic group of people working across all government departments as I said already chairing a thousand meetings at official level and we'll continue with that level of intensive work until the end of our presidency. So I would like to express my gratitude for the fantastic support that we have received from our civil servants and from our officials in Brussels particularly. We have a lot which remains to be implemented, a lot of work yet to do as you can see but I think it's fair to say that we are on track and we will continue to remain ambitious and optimistic as we work with our partners to conclude and fulfil all of our presidency objectives by the end of June. So on that note I'd like to thank you all for attending today and I look forward to answering any questions that you might have. Thank you.