A KEY challenge for Ireland's EU presidency will be to make further substantive progress in the transition to the European Monetary Union, the Taoiseach said.
Reporting on last week's EU Summit in Florence and Ireland's presidency of the Union beginning in July, Mr Bruton said the Government's policy was that Ireland should qualify for EMU, membership from its commencement.
"The Government's fiscal and economic policies are and will be built around this objective. These policies have delivered excellent results - the highest growth rate in Europe, increases in employment well above the European average and historically low rates of inflation and interest rates.
"I reject the claims from some quarters that such policies, and indeed the EMU convergence criteria, are inimical to employment creation. Ireland's experience proves otherwise. Excessive Government deficits and higher debt bare not the way to tackle the unemployment problem.
The ratification of Europol by the summit had given a major boost against crime and drug trafficking. The Government had decided on a number of specific initiatives in the drugs area which it would promote during its EU presidency, including arrangements for co operation between national forensic science laboratories as an aid to law enforcement.
The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, said a clean environment did not figure in the Taoiseach's list of "snappy soundbites" for the presidency which included jobs, money and safe streets.
"It will be more difficult to fill these general aims with real substance. The Taoiseach, while he is entitled to be ambitious should avoid creating unrealistic expectations of what the EU under the Irish presidency can achieve, especially over a six month period."
He hoped the European fight against crime would go beyond routine exchanges of information and that it would provide a fast and effective co ordination of effort. Countries like Ireland had to police a disproportionate share of European waters relative to population and should get some EU assistance in mounting regular air sea coastal patrols.
Ms Mairin Quill (PD, Cork North Central) said unemployment levels in the EU were truly depressing - 10 per cent in Germany and 23 per cent in Spain. Of the bigger states only Britain and the Netherlands had single digit unemployment rates - 8 and 7 per cent respectively.
"High unemployment is not simply some act of God" she said. It is the inevitable result of pursuing certain policies. In this era of global competitiveness over taxation and over regulation are indulgences that no country can afford.
The Taoiseach, she said, had set lofty objectives for the forthcoming Irish presidency. Nobody should quibble with his decision to put employment at the top of the European agenda for the next six months, but it should have been there for the last six years.
Europe was now at a crossroads. "During the next few years it can go in either of two directions. It can remain a community of democratic, independent nations bound together in a single market, or it can develop into a fully fledged federation, the United States of Europe." That momentous decision would have important consequences for Ireland, yet there had been virtually no debate on the subject in this country.
The Fianna Fail spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Ray Burke, said that a positive outcome of the forthcoming Inter Governmental Conference (IGC) must not result in any dilution of Ireland's position of military neutrality.
The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, said there was general recognition in Florence of the need for a decisive change in the pace of discussions at the IGC as it moved into a real negotiating phase. The Irish presidency had been given the task of bringing forward an outline for a draft revision of the EU treaties before the December summit. It was expected that that summit would mark decisive progress in the negotiations and that the IGC would complete its work by the middle of next year.
The three main areas to be tackled were bringing the Union closer to its citizens, strengthening and enlarging the Union's common foreign and security policy, and assuring the good functioning of the EU institutions.
Ms Kathleen Lynch (DL, Cork North Central) welcomed the emphasis that would, be placed on jobs during the Irish presidency. "It is unacceptable that nearly 20 million Europeans should be con signed to a life on the economic and social margins," she said.
