Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Whelan and Mr. Coyle to the committee and I thank them for their work over many years.

It was mentioned that the banks that were approved to roll out the credit guarantee scheme had expressed concerns to the Irish Exporters Association. Will they outline the concerns expressed by the banks and when was the last time the IEA engaged with either the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation or the Department of Finance on the scheme?

Mr. Coyle referred to artisan producers and trying to encourage them to grow the business by getting into the export market. He himself is an example of how that was done.

I get a sense that in Ireland, food is regulated to death and that in so doing the artisan is regulated out of the market, whereas other countries to which we export and with which we are in competition seem less obsessed about gold-plated regulation and more obsessed about the quality of the food. I seek the views of the witnesses on this. As for the cost of doing business, I presume the Irish Exporters Association has the same views on the potential of changes in sick pay legislation as the other business organisations.

I am concerned that the association included ministerial trade missions as a warning point. Has there been a fall-off in the number of ministerial trade missions since the trade function moved to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade? Previously, there was always a Minister with responsibility for trade, who used to lead off that section. Second, what countries were covered this year? Finally, the overall presentation from both Mr. Whelan and Mr. Coyle suggests that within the Government system - and not simply the party political system - there appears to be a complacency about export markets. There appears to be an attitude that it is all doing really well, exports are flying and large quantities of drugs are being exported from the country. In short, one gets the story that exports are doing well. However, I detect an overall sense from the witnesses that there is complacency within the entire system to the effect that it will be all right on the night. Is such a perception wrong?