Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements Dail Éireann — 2026-04-28 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central Okay. I was dealing with Deputy Ó Cearúil and Deputy Byrne there as well. In response to Deputy Byrne, the National Economic and Social Council came through Cabinet today. It has a very good report on AI, which we will be publishing imminently and is well worth a read. In response to Deputy McCormack, I am absolutely clear that EU membership is critical to Ireland, as is the EU Single Market. Parts of the EU Presidency will be deepening the Single Market and moving from a single market to one market is the objective. The competitiveness roadmap has been outlined by the European Council and by the Commission. It will fall to Ireland to implement many of the 17 files that they have identified as critical, from the savings and investment union to the 28th regime to enable SMEs to start up quickly across Europe. We have a lot on the agenda. We will go at it very determinedly in terms of the competitiveness agenda and in doing so, strengthen Ireland's position because we have always benefited ultimately from the Single Market, the Common Market and a one-market approach. The decoupling of gas from energy prices, to answer Deputy Whitmore, was not discussed at great length at Davos - not at the events I was at - but it is being discussed. It has been discussed over the last five years at the European Union. The Iberian Peninsula, because of the very heavy preponderance of renewables there, was in a position in some instances to decouple. We have put that to the President of the European Commission, Dr. von der Leyen. She has looked at it. It is very complex. It is not simple or straightforward. It is an issue I have raised consistently over the last number of months. Some 50% of our electricity generation is now from renewables. We are making good progress onshore but it will be some time before we get the offshore wind generation through. That is still a work in progress because if you could disconnect gas, it would help in reducing prices more generally. In response to Deputy Connolly, at these events social cohesion is always an issue, and is always something that is discussed, as is the issue of research and development and competitiveness. The other issue was the pace of change within Europe itself. There is a general view that Europe is too bureaucratic. For instance, most of the industry people I met felt that Europe was not as competitive as China, not as competitive as Asia and not as competitive as the US on many fronts, particularly on AI but also in other areas in terms of technology more generally. Some companies say they do not launch technology products in Europe and when they are doing a world launch, they exclude Europe because they feel it would be too difficult. That tells a story that should worry Europe in terms of its competitiveness. In response to Deputy McGuinness, Ireland has taken steps with Spain. The way the Deputy presents the Ireland position on the Middle East defies what actually has happened. When I met Prime Minister Mustafa, all he said to me was, "Thank you for Ireland's stance." We should listen to the Palestinian representatives and Palestinians generally, who are very appreciative of the efforts of the Irish Government and the Irish people towards their situation. I have engaged with the German Chancellor and others to try to persuade people. Germany has a particular historic perspective in respect of the Middle East and that has governed that country's position in relation to it. However, it is very strong, to be fair to it, on the humanitarian side and probably gives more than most in terms of contributions on that front. There is an issue, however, which I discussed only recently, at the Council last week, in terms of the Israeli behaviour in Gaza, but also in Lebanon. In response to Deputy Conway-Walsh on the need to diversify, I think I have covered that with Deputy Ó Cearúil. We have to remain competitive. We are attracting more AI investments into the country. There is a race on to be competitive here and there will be impacts. As Deputy Ó Cearúil said to me earlier, re-skilling and re-training will be key to it. In response to Deputy Ó Murchú, globalisation is not over. If you were a rural inhabitant of China, you might think globalisation was a good thing. Half a billion people have been lifted out of poverty in China. It is still a work in progress. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-28