Mr. Mark Fielding:

I shall mention a couple of things. Deputy O'Dea asked how much it would be to opt-in but his question was answered by one of his colleagues.

With regard to the invalidity and sickness benefit, it would increase by about 1.5%, as mentioned in the Mangan report. Senator Moloney mentioned 14% or something which was the figure for full entitlements.

With regard to the issue of a mandatory or voluntary increase, we must think in terms of competitiveness at the moment because any increase in costs for businesses - self-employed or otherwise - will stop the creation of jobs. There is a misnomer that self-employed are out of the woods on this issue. The troika only left a month and a half or two months ago but we still struggle to make ends meet and maintain jobs in this country. We are lucky that we have seen an increase of 60,000 jobs over the past year. I hope that will continue but there are still areas where businesses cannot afford an increase in costs. A mandatory increase would be an increase in taxation.

A point was made about businesses being discriminated against. The Taoiseach has asked for us to be the best small country in the world for business and I would like it to be the best small country in the world for small business. On the one hand, a successful business is taxed at the higher rate of 55% compared with 52% for employees. If a business is unsuccessful and goes wallop one is discriminated against again in this matter. Whether we talk about voluntary, opt-in, opt-out or whatever, we need to start talking in terms of the entrepreneur. To become the best small country for business we need to start cherishing entrepreneurs which we are not doing at the moment if we tax them higher, humiliate and penalise them when they are not as successful as they could be. We are driving these people out of the country. It is from that point of view that we need to be careful. A mandatory system will cost jobs. The scheme can be brought in over a period but there is an opt-in situation. Small business owners are quite able to understand the differences and can insure themselves if needs be but that needs to be done on a voluntary basis.