'Strong words' have been exchanged between the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and French president Nicolas Sarkozy over the issue of corporate tax.

The French government is understood to be pressing for Ireland to be flexible on the question of a common corporate tax base in exchange for flexibility on the terms of our bail-out.

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny was attending an EU summit in Brussels where leaders had been discussing the crisis in the euro zone.

Earlier, Mr Kenny told reporters that he had a very strong mandate from the Irish people to improve the EU-IMF deal and would be laying out the reasons why to his fellow EU leaders.

Having made renegotiation of the bail-out a key electoral promise, Mr Kenny has encountered first hand the extent to which some of his euro zone partners, notably the countries that underwrite the bail-out, are reluctant to relax its terms.

[link to www.rte.ie]

It's gonna be a LONG summer lol