Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the witnesses. I will start with Mr. Fergal O'Brien, who I gather from his submission is extremely enthusiastic about a property tax. Perhaps he will talk to members a little about that. I also wish to ask him about the issue of lending to business.

There is, obviously, still a huge difficulty in accessing credit. I was interested to read in the document of IBEC's endorsement of a State-backed enterprise or investment bank. I note the distance we have all travelled since the crisis hit, but this does not strike me as standard IBEC fare.