Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been struggling with an issue that is not in any of the submissions. We are overly reliant on foreign direct investment in this country and we need to develop a vibrant domestically owned SME sector, and bigger than SME sector. When I speak to investors and private equity fund managers about all of this cool high technology entrepreneurial investment that we keep hearing that we need, and which I think we do need, they point out that one of the oddities of the Irish market is that investors in Germany, London, Boston or Palo Alto describe how their companies will look or feel in 20 years' time but investors in Dublin, Cork or Galway speak about how much they will sell their company for in three years' time. The result is that we do not have a culture and tradition of investing intergenerationally or over decades. I acknowledge there are various recommendations on capital gains tax and employment investment schemes but is there anything in particular the witnesses think would help Irish investors and equity owners, including employees, to hold on to their companies rather than be incentivised to sell them?