Mr. John A. Moran:

One of the reasons I was so quick to support Mr. Butler when he asked me to do this as an independent voice for the SME sector was that the last time around I found that the SME sector did not really have a strong voice or, certainly, not as strong a voice as the FDI sector has with IDA Ireland. The larger indigenous businesses, as Enterprise Ireland has evolved, also have somebody to speak for them. Many SME groups have very different businesses and, therefore, have their own representative groups to reflect their interests. What is brilliant about what is happening with the SME Recovery Ireland movement, if I can call it that, is that is just how many of these groups have been able to put aside their differences and get behind the same plan in order to help policymakers to understand. I know from being on the other side of the table that there is nothing worse than receiving 150 different consultations and 150 different sets of ideas. What is powerful about what is happening is that all of these SME groups, including ISME, the Hair and Beauty Industry Confederation Ireland, those involved in childcare, people who drive coaches, and Ms McCabe and her retail businesses, have all come behind this report to say that this explains their problems and offers solutions to these problems. It is not the FDI sector, which, as the Deputy says, is a world apart. The rest of the global economy is not going to recover quickly so it is not like the last recession where we could rely upon an export-driven economy. We need to get SMEs back working again in order to do this.

When I used to attend meetings like this in the past, I could not talk about policy. I can state now, however, that policy is decided by the Government. The civil servants and public administrators across our system may give their advice but, fundamentally, what the Government decides is what needs to be implemented in the State by the system. The direction of travel needs to be very clear in July in terms of where we need to go on that.