Ms Br?d O'Connell:

If I could jump in on this one, never wanting to miss an opportunity and noting there are 36 seconds left in this round. We want that money. If there is something the committee can take away from today, there is an opportunity to invest in our membership and their training, so why not use it? These are the guys who are the backbone of our community. Of the 2,300 businesses we currently have licensed as Guaranteed Irish, 70% employ 20 or fewer employees. It is really important that we support that backbone of Irish industry. Those are the guys who swing their legs out of the bed in the morning and have to face into whether they can pay the wages and rates - the committee knows this; its members are on the front door of it – so it is really important that we try to support them any way we can. We do a lot of PR, marketing and events. It is all membership money. We do not get one cent from the Government and nor have we really asked for it. But if there is money there that can help our members we would love to be the route to get it to them. As a not-for-profit, our job is to make sure they get it all and it is not all caught up in administration, other than our time to get it through. They are a professional team and as it is important that the professional team is paid properly, we run a tight and good ship.