 Ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank you for the invitation, for the opportunity to speak here and indeed to discuss some issues of this very complex and very challenging portfolio which is facing especially challenging questions here in Ireland and other countries where the financial crisis is making an impact longer than most of us would have expected a couple of years ago. And I would really like to stress at the very start that the European Commission is indeed doing its best to support Ireland in this difficult period and now that in the recent period they have been some very high level events, high level visits in Dublin to help to change the atmosphere. I would also like to contribute to this series and discuss some difficult issues but in the spirit of improving the atmosphere if possible and see what I also saw in the morning together with government ministers that even in very difficult circumstances there can be a vision, there can be good ideas that show the way forward out of the recession, out of the financial turmoil and they carried not just the hope but also the strategy to improve the situation and the employment and the social area as well. This Barozo II commission of which I remember started its mandate when we were facing a financial crisis in another member state. It was then the Greek crisis on the agenda a little bit over one year ago and at the later stage the picture became more clear that we were not just facing financial crisis in individual countries but we have seen process that exposed much of the weaknesses of the Economic and Monetary Union but this process and these developments did not prevent us from developing ambitious objectives in the Europe 2020 strategy for the next 10 years for economic and social development but it's true that the starting point is really difficult I think it's an Irish proverb to say that you would not want to start from here. We would definitely not wish to start from here when we have in the European Union about 10% unemployment rate. We have 7 million more unemployed people now in the European Union than just about three years ago. This is really a sharp rise of unemployment and what is even sharper is the rise of use unemployment in the recent period especially in certain member states where it can be more than one-third of the age group and there are not a few, there are about half a dozen member states with such bad statistics. More than 38% of the European Union's unemployed people and 50% in some member states including Ireland have been without a job for more than a year now. These job seekers now risk being permanently excluded from the labour market and there are around 80 million people below the poverty line in the European Union. This is clearly a bleak picture, nonetheless it is worth pointing out that people have been cautioned against the worst social and economic consequences of the crisis by social protection systems. I do not want to downplay the impact of the crisis but I believe it has proven the value of the European social model which has protected people from some of the potential consequences of this very severe economic downturn. And while it may be called comfort to those who have lost their jobs, whose homes have been repossessed, it is clear that without EU solidarity and the European social model things would have been much worse in the recent years. We know the road to food recovery will be long and hard and that this difficult journey includes severe measures to reduce public debt and get national finances in order. The challenge is first of all to consolidate public finances while creating the right conditions for a return to jobs and growth. It is crucial that the negative impact of budget cuts on our social and economic situation is kept to a minimum and that the most vulnerable social groups are protected. And in order to help as many people as possible to find jobs it is paramount to build up active labour market measures. Ireland has put a lot of effort into modernising its system of benefits and activation policies while protecting people from poverty by maintaining benefits as far as possible despite cuts in public spending. This has meant, for example, that old age pensioners have been spared social benefit cuts. At the same time a number of new measures have been introduced to tackle unemployment. 15,000 activation places have been made available mainly under workplace men programs and around 7,000 additional places have been opened up in tertiary education. The government, in my view, has rightly made job creation a priority and I will come back to this jobs initiative later on at the end of my talk. But first I would like to tell you more about the role of the European Union in job creation, our employment agenda because in the last one year we have really developed this area quite significantly as part of the Europe 2020 strategy. In fact, employment and social policies are largely the responsibilities of the member states. That's what everybody knows and we hear it very often in our discussions but it has been recognised also that the European institutions have to play a strong role, they are strong expectations and we can see it from the opinion surveys, the Europe parameter that the European citizens want the European Union to play a stronger role and be more effective in job creation and in the fight against poverty. In the recent years we have seen actually a gradual strengthening of the employment and social dimension in Europe's overall policies and the Europe 2020 strategy which was adopted last June was agreed by the 27 EU leaders and it sets the objective to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in the next decade. It has five headline targets and out of the five headline targets to be achieved by 2020, one concerns employment, it's 75% employment rate to be reached by 2020 and another one education and a third one poverty reduction. The economic governance process which is being developed through what is known as the European semester is based on integrated guidelines for economic and employment policy. The EU is rightly building up closer coordination of economic and social policies and we need to ensure that the social dimension of this process is further strengthened. To help member states reform their labour markets, improve education systems and support social inclusion the EU also has a financial lever which is the European social fund. In Ireland over 900 million euro is being invested through the Human Capital Investment Programme to which the ESF contributes with 375 million. The ESF is a 10 billion euro per year fund that reaches out to 9 million Europeans annually. It helps 2 million job seekers to find work each year focusing mainly on upgrading skills, activation of unemployed people, increasing labour market participation and supports of disadvantaged people. Ireland is making a very good use of the ESF and is the second fastest ESF spender within the EU after Latvia. Just before coming here I actually visited a very interesting project of the Digital Skills Academy which is part of the digital hub in Dublin and I think this is helping those people enrolled in courses to gain skills that will make them competitive under labour market and get jobs very soon especially in the SME sector. The EU also helps workers who have lost their job due to globalization or the global financial and economic crisis. In 2009 and 2010 Ireland submitted six applications for support from the European Globalization Adjustment Fund for over 60 million euros covering re-qualification and job search assistance for nearly 10,000 workers. We have these financial instruments because one of the big challenges facing Europe's workforce is how to promote employability of people in a constantly evolving economic context as well as how to foster labour mobility among young people. And this is something I would like to underline here. Creating new jobs and ensuring that job seekers actually have the right skills the labour market requires is crucial if we are going to meet the overall Europe 2020 target of 75% employment. By 2020 85% of jobs are expected to call for high or medium level skills and the percentage of low skill jobs is likely to fall to 15%. So having the right skills for the future means more advanced skills because of technological and organizational changes as well as the shift towards a low carbon economy. Training in skills now is also important to address the unemployment challenges of the day. This is especially true in countries like Ireland where substantial re-skilling is needed for those laid off in sectors like construction which are unlikely to return to the output levels of 2008 or even 2005. A lack of suitable training and education or just the right mix of skills is preventing many people of all ages from accessing the labour market. This is where our initiative and agenda for new skills in jobs comes into play as one of the Commission's seven flagship initiatives under the Europe 2020 strategy. Last November I set out proposals that focus on developing labour market intelligence and skill governance for example. The new EU skills panorama for example will analyse skills mismatches across the EU and provide foresight on skills needs. We are also supporting mutual learning and cooperation between public employment services. Also the agenda focuses on education and training systems in Europe in order to provide the right mix of skills. For instance by improving the classification and recognition of qualifications. This also means reinforced cooperation within the triangle of education, institutions, businesses and employment services. And finally it's important to mention skills development where increased labour demand is expected particularly in areas related to the greening of the economy or for example the health sector. This also requires strengthening of the lifelong learning strategies. I could give you further examples of EU initiatives included in the agenda for new skills and jobs but I think this has been sufficient to highlight that our agenda is about investing in human resources. What we believe and what is expressed in the Europe 2020 targets and the flagship initiatives is that in the Commission's view the source of the competitiveness of the European economy is the competitive labour force which is trained, which is skilled according to the needs of the 21st century and we have to focus in the implementation of the agenda on these efforts and we have the capacity and I'm sure we will also post 2013 have the capacity to support these efforts in the member states by using the social fund and other financial instruments. Now I would like to spend some time on discussing another issue which is not so much a long term strategy but one of the most burning urgent challenges of the employment policy of this period which is use unemployment. The situation of the young people in the labour market as I pointed to this, the rise of use unemployment has been more dramatic, even more dramatic than the rise of average unemployment in the EU. In November last year actually use unemployment in the EU peaked at about 21 per cent and just like in overall unemployment Spain is holding the record here with the use unemployment it is 43 per cent but there are further countries, the Baltic states, Greece and Slovakia in Ireland too with use unemployment rate close to or higher than 30 per cent of the age group which is those at 25 years or less. So in other words if you look at this in absolute terms there are roughly 5.5 million young people out there without a job who may lose hope and simply drop out of the labour market. If the governments don't come forward more forcefully with very concrete strategies and opportunities. In some cases these young people may be forced to accept work under precarious conditions such as short term contracts offering few opportunities to move ahead even for those with good qualifications. Some will probably choose to spend longer in education which is not a bad idea of course but it may simply postpone the problem for a couple of years until they start trying to find a job again. And that's why the Commission within the 2020 strategy launched a specific flagship initiative about the use, it's called use on the move, it sets out actions covering education and employment for young people. Let me mention three of these actions. The first one on the policy level we propose that countries offer a use guarantee to ensure that all young people are either in a job or in education or training within four months of leaving school. The idea is to make sure that none of these people lose contact with the labour market. And on a very practical level we have launched the use at work campaign as an awareness raising initiative to create better links between young people and businesses, especially small businesses. 99% of EU firms are small and medium sized enterprises which account for about 70% of new jobs thanks to entrepreneurship, startups and innovation. Yet there are rarely the first port of call for young people looking for work. Use at work will bridge the gap between SMEs and young job seekers through job fairs and by providing information and support to encourage them to think differently. We are looking at how to encourage young people to consider starting up their own businesses. Last year we also launched the EU microfinance facility which already has operations in five countries and can support young entrepreneurs as well. And third, within the use on the move, we are launching a number of actions to support labour mobility among young people. Your first job action will be operated through public employment services, providing advice and job search and financial support for young people wishing to work in other member countries and for companies, especially SMEs, seeking to recruit young people. It's a bit like Rasmus for young workers and their prospective employers. The European Vacancy Monitor is up and running and helps young people and career advisors follow vacancy trends across Europe, providing useful information on the kinds of skills employers need. Ladies and gentlemen, let me finally again come back to the situation in Ireland. Looking at this from the perspective of employment and social policies promoted by the EU, I believe that the Irish government is going in the right direction in terms of fostering job creation and protecting people from poverty. The austerity programme has entailed a lot of painful measures. But given the fiscal impact of rescuing the financial sector, this has been unfortunately necessary to bring Ireland back to macroeconomic stability. Thanks to the government's commitment, the programme is on track and it has been possible within the first quarterly review to reverse the cut in the minimum wage and to reduce the pay related social insurance contribution for low income earners. This is good news as it will help to relieve the extra burden on workers and work against inward poverty in lower wage brackets. The government is also taking steps to directly stimulate job creation which is hugely important. The jobs initiative with its mix of education, training and internship measures, targeted investments in maintenance and retrofitting and tax breaks in labour intensive sectors is a promising programme. It should be built upon further. It is especially important to continue activating the unemployed and those who may have dropped out of the labour force. This means supporting the re-skilling of people so they are able to take up jobs in sectors where vacancies exist and are expected to grow in the future like IT, business support, engineering, healthcare, customer care, retail or even agriculture. Restoring state finances while ensuring a job-rich recovery and protecting the most vulnerable are the biggest challenges facing not only Ireland but also the entire European Union. Concentrating on employability and improving our human resources through training and education is essential. I believe Ireland offers a good example for Europe through the measures taken in the jobs initiative. The whole of Europe needs to work towards a job-rich recovery in the context of fiscal constraints and we need intelligent policies to achieve that. I wish the Irish government success in its efforts to bring the economy and national finances in line so the Irish people can enjoy brighter prospects for the future. Ireland's lasting reputation in Europe has been formed by a record of commitment, innovation and progress. The effort that Ireland has put in over the past years on infrastructure, education and innovation with Europe's help will pay off in making it through this very painful crisis. There is work to be done in reforming the labour markets, for example, updating worker skills and making sure the right conditions are there to create employment and keep those who are working in employment. But all the foundations of the Irish success story are present. A hard-working country with an open economy. I'm confident that Ireland will succeed and come out stronger than before. Thank you very much for your attention.