Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an gCoimisinéir. He is most welcome and I am delighted to have him here. I will reflect on some of the points he has made. He mentioned corporation tax. I will point out that, as the Commissioner will know, Ireland has moved significantly to harmonise tax rates in respect of large employers. With respect to Ukraine, all of the Commissioner's comments are absolutely valid. We support them all. As he will know, we have dispensed with the requirement for a visa. There is visa waiver in place for all Ukrainians coming to Ireland. Ireland will certainly do its part and everything it can do to welcome refugees, to try to integrate them and to allow them to access our employer base as quickly as possible.

With regard to the general discussion we are having, the Commissioner will be well aware that we have three pillars of employment in this country. We have foreign direct investment, the public sector and the SME community, which is made up of the small and medium enterprises. In this country, the SME community employs approximately 900,000 workers. Within that, there is great variance between large and small employers. With regard to the whole idea of harmonisation of working conditions, wages, insurance and pensions, does one size fit all? Can one size suit all? We are probably in agreement but I have to ask the question. If you look at wage disparity in this country, you will see that high-level public servants, including ourselves, are paid well, as are people at the higher levels in the pharmaceutical industry. However, there is a large number of people who are not paid well. That is the first question.

This committee has done quite a bit of work with regard to the platform economy and one of the things that has recently come up, and which Europe will have to address, is that we have very large US multinationals that are using subcontracted employment services to employ people here in order to keep them at a remove from the main entity in the US. We are going to have to find some way to properly codify that relationship.

In his submission, the Commissioner highlighted his desire for people to undertake onward training. There are many people in this society who have to pay to access further education. Perhaps the Commissioner could have some discussions with our Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment on tax credits for people who want to engage in onward education.

I will refer to two other areas, if I may. One is that of our agricultural sector. As the Commissioner will know, we are a very large exporter of agrifood to Europe and across the world. He has highlighted the difficulties that are coming with regard to inflation in the price of commodities and so on. Ireland is a price taker and distribution is largely controlled by conglomerates in this country. Is Europe developing any special initiatives to support food manufacturing in Europe, particularly at the primary producer end? Is there something we can do that will help the primary producer rather than the processor or multiple retailers?

We are doing a lot and talking a lot about climate change and rolling out climate measures in this country at the moment. Europe needs to do more in providing funding for research to develop climate technologies and to assist in their roll-out.