Professor Frank Barry:

In the US in particular, we have good data on the amounts spent on lobbying politicians and so on so, presumably, laws are influenced by interest groups - no surprise there. This might well be a first. It is really the last question that Deputy Boyd Barrett was asking as well. Let me use the example of a pharmaceutical company. In respect of the pharmaceutical firms down in Cork, the stuff that goes in one end consists of bulk chemicals, which are very cheap. The stuff that comes out at the other end are these pills that cost $20. That does not mean that those factory workers are the most productive workers in the world. The profit there is the profit associated with the fact that this is Pfizer that has billions in research and development that ran into the sand because out of every €20 billion one spends on research and development in pharmaceuticals, most of that is wasted and never sees the light of day. It is not really true to say that all the profits are generated in this factory in Cork where what comes in are cheap bulk chemicals and what comes out are very valuable products. One cannot say this is because those Irish workers are spectacularly productive.