John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Lisa Chambers asked a number of the questions that I had an interest in and they have been covered. I thank the three organisations for their interesting presentations.

None of them mentioned single people with no dependants who make up 25% of the workforce. I am always intrigued by this. It is a significant cohort of the workforce. Such people probably have more demands on them because they cannot share those financial demands. I would be interested in their feedback on that. No one ever mentions the single person. As I said, if they do not have dependants, then every outgoing is dealt with singlehandedly by them. What is their view on that? It is not particularly connected with any of their contributions.

I would not favour ISME now opening up the public and private sector debate at all, to be honest, because it is provocative. In its contribution, ISME states "the majority of our so-called fiscal space is being diverted into public payroll". That is factually wrong for this year. When one goes through what is available in the fiscal space, that does not stand up in terms of payroll. ISME needs to correct that because it will start a debate. Even in respect of the words "the majority of", is that 90% or 63% of it? From the figures that have been presented thus far, it is factually wrong.

Everybody is talking about Brexit and getting Brexit-ready, but nobody is talking about the USA and what is already happening in terms of trade wars. It has begun and it is beginning to have an impact on what we talk about in foreign direct investment. That is why I want to come back to what ISME has said about successive budgets prioritising multinational corporations. ISME asks us to bear that in mind as we consider budget 2019. Certainly, I am taking that on. I would like to see enterprise measures proposed or some kind of thrust towards that. I am interested in what targets and actions ISME would like to see that would benefit specifically SMEs and indigenous industries. That question is addressed to Dublin Chamber as well.