Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

These are the questions. The questions are about how it appears in the data as presented that, in terms of the cost of employing someone on an average wage in the 15 countries, only Greece and Portugal would have lesser costs in terms of labour costs. This is my point. There is a narrative that everyone believes, which is that high marginal tax rates and particularly those we have in Ireland, are a cost on employment, a deterrent and all the rest. However, it appears from the OECD data, if we take average earnings, that Ireland has the second lowest cost in terms of tax wedge on average earnings out of the EU 15.