Mr. Gerard Brady:

I am almost afraid to suggest another economic forum because we have many of them. There are bodies in place. Taking labour market changes as an example, where we have many coming through now, the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, is the obvious place for those. As regards environmental changes, we have the Climate Change Advisory Council. It does not necessarily deal with the tax side of things. There could be a similar body to try to map out some of these key areas regarding tax over a longer period and generate the kind of public buy-in that Mr. Talbot is talking about. The challenge here is that if we jump people at the time of the Finance Bill, they will react to it. We have a tendency then to back down and the changes never come back again and the proposal gets dropped. If information is leaked out slowly, on the other hand, over a number of years and people get used to the idea that a change is coming, that may be a better approach.

It does not always work and it certainly did not for benefit-in-kind, but it has worked in other areas. The example of the carbon tax is probably a good one in the business community. I would have guessed ten to 15 years ago that there would have been considerable opposition in the business community to a carbon tax. As we build a consensus on the need for change and build on people's attitudes by bringing them into the process rather than leaving them to be surprised on budget day, it helps to build consensus. This is particularly the case when it comes to the skills and labour market changes we are seeing. This is an area where greater consensus needs to built, certainly when it comes to-----