Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome proposals and recommendations from any organisation but I do not welcome surveillance on policies developed in Ireland by any organisation outside Ireland.

The report focuses on issues that we all know are important, including long-term unemployment among young people and low-skilled unemployment. It focuses also on child care. The children's allowance makes it more difficult for a parent to rejoin the workforce. Another factor to have arisen today is that there has been very little regulation of child care since that "Prime Time" exposé about a year ago. That, too, reduces parents' confidence when they want to re-enter the workforce.

SME debt is still a critical mess. The fact that a third of businesses are in debt impairment puts the foot on the neck of possible growth. Another sector, the hotel sector, is in real trouble with debt. I know that some of the positive things that the Government has done on job creation have been in the hospitality sector, yet much of that will be either stalled or reversed if there is not a mechanism to reduce the level of toxicity of some of that debt. We have had many banks and financial institutions before the committee. Some of them have taken positive steps to separate toxic debt and the functioning element of their business, but others have not. Others just see functioning businesses as an opportunity fix their own internal financial problems. I had a meeting earlier today with a number of small traders. Cash-handling costs are putting small traders out of business. The way in which the banking industry is focused on deleveraging, on reducing the level of credit in the economy and on making it more difficult for businesses to function is still having an enormous, negative impact on opportunities for job creation. Will the Minister force the banks to nurture those functioning businesses which have toxic elements to them and to start making it easier for small businesses to function in respect of cash-handling charges etc.?

Has the issue of our corporation tax raised its head in this regard? What is the Minister's view on the European Commission's desire to investigate our corporation tax and what does he see as being the outcome of that? What could be done to increase our competitive advantages elsewhere in the economy so that we are not so reliant on competitive advantage in corporation tax, especially the bargain basement element of it which was highlighted by the Governor of California during the Taoiseach's recent visit?