Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----than in Europe. That means the reality is the opposite. It is 20:80 versus 80:20. There is a general perspective that the Irish financial system does not support SMEs or investment in SMEs. We need to move towards more engagement by venture capitalists in the European markets in order to promote and stimulate growth.

Mr. O'Mahoney mentioned in his initial presentation the idea of common standards. In other words, if one is going to have a genuine market, or wants to buy equity in a company rather than debt, then we need to develop common standards when providing balance sheet information and so forth, which would allow for an assessment across the EU on a particular investment in a company in any of the EU member states. There was also talk of a minimum set of comparable information that would be developed and shared with the interested parties in which the European Central Bank could play a role - in other words, a standardisation of SME credit information. It could be a little like launching shares on a stock exchange, such as the Green Book requirements or whatever. What has been proposed, and I am open to correction, sounds like a new weighty administrative system. Is that realistic? I am not necessarily talking about it being realistic for some of the big European companies. Is it realistic, in general, for the kinds of company that would want to avail of venture capital finance in order to develop new products? To what extent is the administrative burden more overwhelming than the benefits?

Another question occurred to me as a presentation was being made. Unfortunately, I did not have Ms Breheny's quite lengthy presentation in front of me and it was difficult to make notes on thin air.

She mentioned that tax policy is biased against equity. My understanding from decades of economic deliberation, dating from my university days, is that this nation is generally very risk averse and tends towards opting for the more traditional financial products. Back in the 1990s, we moved towards the business expansion scheme, BES, and tried to encourage individuals to have an appetite for more risky investment backed by tax incentives and so forth. It was clearly abandoned afterwards. To what extent is there room for moving as a nation back in that direction?

With regard to Deputy Donnelly's questions, which were very comprehensive, my query is purely nationalistic. We seem to be doing quite well on the investment front. Ms Breheny mentioned that we are doing comparatively better than other EU states in terms of venture capital investment. The phenomenon seems to be confined to a couple of sectors. Ms Breheny mentioned technology principally. Is it only technology? Why are we getting better? Could the growth be extended to other Irish companies of a similar size? Is there a danger that if we move more towards a single market in capital, we may actually lose out? If the market is to become more efficient, might there be more dragging of capital into the centre and a movement away from investment in the periphery? Are there dangers facing us if we have a more efficient capital market? According to Ms Breheny, we seem to be doing quite well in this regard anyway.