Mr. John McGrane:

I might take a macro lens approach first and then drill in. The best way to improve labour earnings is to improve the ability of the employer in any given situation to pay that. Not to be ridiculous about it, the market is competitive but way beyond that, every employer, not least the indigenous home-grown firms, want to keep good people and take care of them.

Earlier I made the observation that the State may add to the costs of labour in ways that are discretionary. We are not saying that should not happen. These are well-being issues and, therefore, concern the well-being of society as a whole but we might challenge should they be borne fully by the employers' side. If they are part of a national policy then they might come out of national funding and that is not about just printing more money. That is about accompanying that thinking with a deep-dive review of how well we are spending the money we collect in the first place. This country is building the most expensive children's hospital in the world and it has not been built yet. We are rolling out national broadband with ten-year old technology and it is not there yet etc. The State sector, and we have a great public service that is charged with taking care of many of these programmes along with the private sector, deserves better outcomes. Balancing how we collect and spend the money that we take, from employment and communities, with the ability to provide social justice and better social conditioning, as part of the communities they are involved in, is the way to think going forward and then one can drill down into individual local examples.