Mr. Danny McCoy:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. IBEC is Ireland’s largest business representative organisation. Our positions and policies are shaped by our diverse membership, which comprises businesses that are home grown, multinational, big and small and employ up to 70% of the private sector workforce in Ireland. The structure of our membership is reflective of the Irish economy, with just over 10% employing over 250 people or more. Some 30% are medium-sized businesses employing between 50 and 250 employees. The majority, over 60%, are firms employing under 50 employees.

IBEC is a substantial business. We have a team of 245 professionals and 36 trade associations covering a range of industry sectors, including retail, financial, food, drink, telecommunications, medtech, biopharma, property, utilities, forestry, audiovisual, manufacturing, travel, hospitality and many more I am sure I have left out. Our Small Firms Association, SFA, along with the small and medium enterprises across our sectors, also capture the breadth and diversity of business across our country. We have six offices around Ireland as well as an international office in Brussels. Therefore, we get to see and evaluate our impact internationally, nationally and within sectors. IBEC is also Ireland’s largest lobbying organisation.

The immediate ask is that we put significant measures in place to protect the livelihoods of households and businesses, get people back into jobs and bring forward maintenance and investment projects from an extended capital plan. For now, the immediate actions required from Government are as follows: the replacement of the 2 m social distancing to a 1 m requirement; the removal of the quarantine restrictions; and an extensive and systematic Covid-19 track and trace programme. These are the immediate issues for the reopening of the economy.

Business does not believe the timing of quarantine impositions at this point in the public health curve flattening is either logical or implementable given the reality of the shared island of Ireland. It is also an unnecessary impediment to recovery along with an unco-ordinated approach to the valuable common travel area arrangement with the UK.

IBEC recently launched our Reboot & Reimagine campaign which provides a blueprint for a sustainable future for Ireland. Through our campaign we aim to influence and galvanise stakeholders positively on a co-ordinated response to the social and economic destruction caused by Covid-19 and address the major structural challenges from both the past and present. This framework looks at three phases: the first 100 days; to the end of 2020; and then beyond to 2023. There are more than 200 recommendations across the 7,500 IBEC members. It is a synchronised and phased response to address the economic and business impact as well as achieving a better Ireland in the reimagining aspects.

Our recommendations involve six themes: engagement and crisis management; the fiscal policy and stimulus measures required; getting people back to work; stimulating investment in the context of the national development plan; reimagining a better Ireland; and seizing international opportunities and responding to Brexit.

On engagement and crisis management, we need to establish a more extensive social dialogue model, one IBEC has been referring to for over a year, because we need to be able to react to the all-island dimension, the sustainability criteria and the changing patterns of our business models. I think that social dialogue model will be crucial. We need more private sector involvement in the risk assessment.

On the fiscal policy and stimulus measures, we seek an immediate roll-out of an extra €15 billion for a reboot plan in the first 100 days. This will be across a suite of liquidity measures that I can outline in detail later. They will provide a stimulus for consumer confidence and in particular will address the constraints on the credit guarantee scheme by increasing the guarantee to 100% and removing the portfolio cap to ensure it is actually effective. We also need an export credit scheme to match what our competitors are doing.

On getting people back to work we need to increase employment support by labour market activation schemes and to increase the funding to national training. We need an additional €25 billion to enhance the national development plan.

On reimagining a better Ireland, these resources need to go the social dimension, but on the international and Brexit issues, the all-island dimension is crucial and needs to be factored in.

I again thank the members of the committee for inviting us to attend today.