Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Our competitiveness will require renewed focus across the coming period. While the league tables published recently still show our competitiveness is in a good place, they also show that in a number of particular areas our competitiveness had declined. We have moved down in some of the leagues tables. That is a concern. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, updated the Cabinet on this. As to what we will do about it, we have a national competitiveness board and its mandate has been changed also to take account of productivity. We will have to work harder to maintain and improve our competitiveness in the future. Some of the competitiveness we achieved in recent years was yielded by where we were in our economic cycle and how sharply a number of things fell. Now as we move into a different place in the economic cycle, we will have to find ways in which we renew our focus on our economy being competitive.

One of the key elements I can influence, for example, is where we are at on wage levels through agreements I make, for instance, through the public service. That was a big factor for me in the recent public service stability agreement, namely, to come up with wage levels that make sense in the context of the overall economy.

I am pleased the Deputy raised that matter because our competitiveness needs to given more focus across the coming period. If we consider the sharp shift in exchange rates during the past year due to the devaluation of sterling, our competitiveness must be uppermost in our mind now in the context of decisions we make in the future.