At the Lisbon Summit 2000, the heads of state or Government set a vision for the EU to become by 2010, the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. The Lisbon agenda is a very broadly based strategy aimed at meeting this objective while ensuring coherence, co-ordination and integration of policy and initiatives across the three very broadly defined domains of economic, employment and social policy and thereby promoting their mutually reinforcing impact.
Ireland is fully committed to playing its full part in meeting the Lisbon objectives both through its participation and contribution in initiatives being developed at the EU institutional level and through national economic and social policy development. Since effectively all of the policies and actions being implemented in my Department contribute in one way or another to the Lisbon agenda, it would be impracticable to set out in this reply all of the measures, and progress on them, sought by the Deputy. The annual report of my Department for 2000 is now available on my Department's website, http://www.entemp.ie, and should provide an indication of progress under the various policy areas.
