Mr. David Hegarty:

The effects of the changes in the international tax environment means that our ability to use tax as a competitive lever will be more restricted in the future. We will be more circumscribed in what we can do in the area of corporation tax rates and the regime. We have to look at the other factors that are identified in the White Paper around our business environment, skills, and all of the issues we discussed.

I agree that generating spillovers between the multinational and SME sectors is challenging. It is not as if we have not tried to do this up to now. I would hope that the clustering programme we are working on at the moment will, to some extent, remedy that problem.

My colleague, Ms Hynes, will comment on the Deputy's questions on SMEs, access to export markets and the idea of a separate agency.