Mr. Tom Parlon:

It sounds very plausible; there is no question about it. The CIF has 1,600 members and 90% of those employ fewer than ten people. We are generally small industries. The ones in our top ten, in the €200 million turnover bracket, are very few and far between. When you target the industry, you are targeting a lot of people. The Deputy said there are widespread examples, but even with the insurance levy that was put in place, we have a number of major international insurance companies in the country and maybe one Irish one, so it is slightly different, and then that levy is spread across every individual insurance payer, so it is quite different. In this case, there are many totally compliant businesses. In the concrete business, nearly every town has a small ready-mix outfit and a block-making contractor, or every county has a couple of them anyhow, who are fully compliant, who have never had a problem and who all of a sudden have been landed with a levy. That is certainly going down badly.

The other issue that will be an issue and is not addressed in the Finance Bill that I can see is the impact on suppliers along the Border. Thankfully, the Border has become less of an issue. Brexit has caused some difficulties but our milk products and lots of other stuff is freely going up and down. This would appear to cause a major difficulty and, no doubt, give an advantage to people north of the Border.