Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I will come in briefly on taxation policies, particularly in the context of the cost-of-living challenges we face. We believe wages for public and private sector workers will play a role in addressing those challenges next year. Social wage issues must also be addressed, particularly by getting to the core of some of the costs we have in our economy, such as childcare and housing costs. Crucially, the tax system must be addressed as well. The most significant challenge that comes through to us from an employer perspective is the entry to the top rate of tax. We are taxing people at the highest rate in this country at a very low level in comparison to the countries with which we trade and do business. That has all sorts of consequences not just for disposable income, but also for productivity and competitiveness across our economy. Our emphasis would be on taking more people out of that top rate of tax. We would see that as a priority for budget 2023.

On housing finance, I flag to the committee that we have concerns as the financial markets adjust to the new reality. We will have financing challenges in this economy for housing construction. We will not see the same scale of international funds in Irish housing investment as we have seen over recent years. That will bring its own challenges as we seek to replace that source of finance to maintain the supply of housing we need as an economy.

We have been very clear on energy costs. Some of the businesses we are dealing with are seeing their energy costs increase fourfold to fivefold. For a small business or an SME shop, that means €50,000 increasing to €250,000. For a large business, that is tens of millions. That is way beyond any profit margins those businesses can earn. We have to preserve those firms and those jobs. One of the lessons of Covid was that we could actually do that. We did that incredibly effectively to bring us back to 2.5 million people in employment, and to bring us to the type of tax revenues which mean we are heading towards a very large surplus for this year. I agree with the Deputy's sentiments that we have to preserve the fiscal position, but we have the fiscal power to do what is needed to address this particular crisis because we took the right decisions during Covid.