Mr. Neil McDonnell:

The ISME submission is on the record of the House and I do not intend to read it.

On the macro risks that we pointed out in our original submission, since we wrote that, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, has confirmed an outflow of US foreign direct investment from Ireland between the first half of last year and the first half of this year of $81 billion. The macro risks we pointed out in our submission are, therefore, no longer academic. They are real and they are happening now.

The broadband saga rolls on without a credible end in sight. This is critical national infrastructure for which the private sector will not be able to create a profitable liquid market in the short to medium term. The State should repurchase the distribution network for broadband and rethink the national broadband plan.

In view of what is happening with Brexit this week, we urgently need to reconsider our road and sea links to the continent due to the material likelihood of a no-deal Brexit.

Our costs of business remain persistently high with no apparent will to tackle them. Insurance is indicative of the malaise that afflicts all our strategic thinking. We are great at setting up commissions, studies, working groups and panels but we lack any determination to put their recommendations into action.

Since we wrote to the committee in September, budget 2019 has been published without any meaningful adjustment to the key employee engagement programme, KEEP, scheme. Similarly, while it would have cost €37 million to give tax equity to the self- employed via the earned income credit, this was not done and a €300 per annum difference remains. We can only ask the committee to imagine the outcry if this inequity was applied to public sector workers. These are small but significant illustrations of the disconnect between those who work in our public service and those who generate the wealth to pay them.

In summary, as we said when we wrote to the committee, we need to fundamentally reconsider our indigenous industrial policy and steer it towards small domestic enterprise. We need to do that soon and we hope the Seanad can be prime movers in doing so.