Mr. Paul Ginnell:

I will take some of them. I thank the Deputy for his questions. On the fiscal space, we have not engaged as directly. We were part of the Better Europe Alliance and in that context we meet the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs and also engaged with the Department of the Taoiseach and other Departments.

Initially there was very little room for flexibility but it seems, as the Deputy said, that recently there has been an increase in recognition, which started with demands from larger countries, in particular France and Germany, that there be some more flexibility. The annual growth survey released by the Commission last week, which is their main document of the year, seems to say that on an ad hocor individual basis, at a European level, they would consider flexibility, particularly when it comes to investment and the recognition of the need for investment. At a European level, we focused on the investment side and the importance of investment on flexibility but did not directly lobby on it. It seems there has been increased recognition of the need for flexibility. All stakeholders at a national level have been demanding that for a number of years.

In terms of taxation, wealth, employer PRSI and our pre-budget submission, there has been work done by TASC on a wealth tax. In the past, the community platform has also made proposals on a wealth tax looking at all areas of wealth. It is one element. TASC estimates that a wealth tax would bring in around €500 million per annum which is not vast. It would make wealth more transparent and bring much more information into the system. It would have some Revenue benefits but it would also provide more transparency in wealth.

In comparative terms, Ireland has one of the lower levels of employer PRSI in the EU so we are asking to move more towards the EU average. As I said earlier, although it does not appear to be, Ireland is-----