Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is past 6 p.m. There are some minor matters that I want to highlight in concluding. My first point is addressed to Mr. O'Brien. In its defence, this committee has proactively highlighted the overruns in current expenditure. It has held hearings on and investigations into how they were being paid for. We have probably been to the forefront in terms of making some of the points that IBEC got around to making this year. Last year, Seamus Coffey made a great deal of the base erosion and profit shifting argument and he was quizzed extensively on it. He was one of the first people I heard refer to this matter. Interestingly, his view was that it represented a substantial threat to the Irish economy, even greater than Brexit. He used exactly the same terminology. His view was that that level of outcome was not as likely, if I remember correctly. IBEC seems to have prejudged the outcome of the next round. The Government and the Minister for Finance have worked extensively with the OECD on this. It is a collective means. We need to remember that Ireland is not alone in looking at the issue within the OECD context. The view of certain countries, including the United States, on corporate tax is different from that of some of our EU neighbours. This is obviously something that is recognised and it is on the Government's agenda as an issue of concern. It is a matter that the committee has examined.

I wish to make one point to Mr. Lucey about the CIF presentation. I nearly wondered at one point whether he and his colleagues had read the Project Ireland 2040 document or anything connected to it. Much of what is in the document refers to curtailing growth in Dublin and shifting growth to the regions. The CIF, its members and the Government at the time, as Mr. Lucey is well aware, contributed to the lost decade. That is why it has taken ten years to get infrastructure projects back up and running. The economy crashed and that is what we have been dealing with. We forget sometimes that it was due to the efforts of the people of Ireland and the Governments that came after that are economy was restored. However, we are still coming out of the aftermath of an awful crash. It is very disappointing when I hear somebody say that their members do not want to grow back to the size they were and that they do not view either the chronic level of housing need that exists and an infrastructure project of the scale of that envisioned in Project Ireland 2040 as enough of an incentive to hire apprentices. When I hear that, I begin to understand why I would be concerned about making suggestions to my child if I were telling him or her certain apprenticeships. There are other more dynamic industries. I hope the CIF submission will include information on research and development and changes. In comparison with almost any other industry, construction is a complete laggard in terms of reform, changing processes and driving innovation. If the CIF members shared some of that enthusiasm, it would be far more positive. I would like to see it in any event.