Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will address each group individually. I welcome Dr. Rigney. It is always good to meet someone from the ICTU which is looking after the workers of this country.

Every time I hear the word "neutrality" used, I challenge its use. Ireland is not neutral, never has been and probably never will be. If it was truly neutral, members of the Defence Forces would not have been denied a pay rise in the past six weeks. On pay, I have had discussions with people at what I refer to as both ends of the economy. I welcome Dr. Rigney's views on the risk that the tech industry in Ireland is slowly pricing itself out of the European market. Large IT companies have to pay salaries in excess of €100,000 to attract people with the competencies necessary to run their organisations. They then have to spend money on accommodation for these employees in which to live. I refer to it as buying accommodation blocks and so on. Senior people in the sector with whom I have had conversations believe it is only a matter of time before companies exit Ireland. They are footloose and have very little hard capital invested in the country. They have plenty of intellectual capital, but as we know,it is highly mobile and can move at any time. IBEC might confirm that 40% of the world's soft balance sheets are in Dublin.

All we need is one serious shock to any one of those companies for it to leave as fast as it came. The only company in the IT industry that is likely to be stuck here is Intel because it has made serious capital investment on the ground. I am interested in hearing the views of the witnesses on that issue. I am also interested in their views on the costs of labour. We know the costs of labour at one end but there are hundreds of workers at the other end outside hospitals all over the country today. Is it the case that there is now a them and an us in the labour market? If there is, I would be interested in any recommendations Mr. Rigney has in that regard in light of our future in Europe. That is key for me. We will have enough on our plates without dividing the workforce. I am interested in Mr. Rigney's views on that.

It is good to meet Mr. Ivory and his colleague, Mr. Dillon, again. We are meeting on the same subject, so I hope they will forgive me if some of my questions are in the same area because it is important that they are put on the record of this committee. On the issue of the Border, the day before yesterday I addressed the meeting of the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs, COSAC, in Bucharest on the issue of Brexit. In my contribution I laid out a number of priorities, the first of which was ensuring that the Single Market not be compromised under any circumstances. From the European perspective, the Single Market is the first priority for all of us. After that we are into such things as the Good Friday Agreement and all that comes with it. This also cannot be compromised. The movement of people across the Border cannot be compromised. We could go on listing issues on which there can be no compromise and the difficulties we have with responsibilities for national infrastructure being shared, with some institutions north of the Border and some south. I am deeply concerned that the Government has not, to date, set out its solution to the Border problem in the event of a no-deal scenario. I am interested in IBEC's position on that.

The last time I met Mr. Ivory we spoke about the stop-start nature of efforts with respect to Brexit. If I am not mistaken, Mr. Dillon outlined the cost to industry of building inventory to prepare for a shock exit, after which it was told that an extension had been agreed so there was no need to keep that inventory and it could be let go. He spoke about the cost of borrowing money to fund that inventory which, ultimately, represents a cost to the business. There is some suggestion in discussions at COSAC and various other fora that the wider European movement may offer the UK another extension to allow it to get its house in order. If I am not mistaken, when we last met, Mr. Dillion said the impact of this would be a serious cost to business and that this process cannot be allowed to continue stopping and starting again. People in business need to know where they stand so that they can build solutions.

I have two further points to make to Mr. Ivory. Have we quantified the number of companies in Ireland that could accommodate direct sea access for the supply of goods to Ireland or the delivery of goods to the wider European market? We are told that we can expect 9 km tailbacks of trucks at our ports. Have we looked at the possibility of getting non-perishable goods across the seabridge and at the cost thereof? Is it prohibitively expensive or can it be built in?

Much of what Mr. Ivory had to say related to the United States and our relationships with various companies in that country. Why are we not looking east? The Iranians would welcome an Irish Embassy. We would have 80 million people to service in Iran and a wider community of 400 million could be serviced through it. Despite this, we will not open an embassy in the country. Why are we not doing so? Does IBEC have an opinion on this matter?

I will move on to the third level sector. I thank Mr. Miley for coming in. I believe this is the first time we have met at this committee. There was a discussion at the COSAC meeting about education driving the Single Market. I was particularly interested by the presentation made by the president of one of the universities in Bucharest. This presentation related to a number of issues this president saw as critical for the future. We tend to talk about an information economy which would be driven by IT and IT solutions. I have some reservations about concentrating excessively on that. I would like to see equal concentration on areas such as apprenticeships. Mr. Rigney may also like to address that issue. One of the things that limits the ability to co-operate throughout Europe is the lack of a standard basis on which to recognise qualifications, if the witnesses follow my drift. A BSc should have the same value regardless of where it is acquired. There was some discussion on the issue of microcredits and about how they may be used in life-long learning to allow people to build a credible set of qualifications to allow mobility within the workforce or to allow the reskilling or upskilling of those in redundant professions or professions that will soon be redundant so that they can move on and become active citizens in the new emerging economies.

On the issue of progression, which is in the same area as microcredits and the recognition of prior learning, one of the things I have never been able to understand is that Irish students in the further education sector can transfer to English universities with full recognition of the two years spent on their diploma course yet they cannot do so in Irish universities. In many cases the national universities will not accept such candidates on any basis other than that of a leaving certificate student through the CAO system. That is limiting the ability of second-chance learners, as I myself was, to move from one sector to another. I had to move to an English university to attain a qualification. I could not do so directly in an Irish one. That bothers me.

My colleague, the Chairman, spoke about funding for Erasmus and Erasmus+. With a tightening European budget, there is definitely an effort to make local governments fund more of these programmes to avoid disenfranchising those students who would avail of them. There is limited money in Europe so attempts are being made to get national governments to pay. That is a retrograde step. I would be interested in anything Mr. Miley has to say on the matter.

With respect to the funding of universities, a little while ago I adverted to the fact that 40% of the world's soft balance sheets are in Dublin. Despite this, I am not sure that there is any PhD programme in the country specifically in the area of cybersecurity. There is no umbrella body dealing with cybersecurity in the country. We are very fortunate in that the companies that have set up here have invested heavily in their own cybersecurity, but the State has not taken responsibility for cybersecurity per se. From the universities' point of view, is there a case to be made for a cybersecurity organisation to be set up, perhaps under the Department of the Taoiseach, to provide a significant amount of funding not only for Irish students in Irish universities, but for Irish students in collaborative programmes right across Europe? It must be remembered that, as far as cybersecurity is concerned, we are always two steps behind the criminals. I am really concerned about the weakness of the economy to any significant attack in the future.

I will leave it at that. I appreciate that I have asked a lot of questions.