Mr. Neil McDonnell:

The budget surplus is causing us as much worry as anyone else. Mr. Farry will have seen the percentage of corporation tax coming from just three companies. We would say it is even worse than was reported by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. We understand that 3.75% of Ireland's gross Exchequer take comes from one company. That is really frightening.

On education, Ireland does well in PISA rankings and the like. We do very well on OECD scores. We have a persistent issue with lifelong learning, which we believe we are not good at. In fact, there is a considerable amount of overeducation. This is not opinion; it is based on an EU study. There is an EU definition of overeducation, which is one's qualification in one's job relative to that required. Not alone does this suggest a waste of public funding but also that people could be very dissatisfied or unhappy where they are working because they are overqualified.

With regard to the repeal of EU legislation, anything we hear about the foot coming off the gas under the current Prime Minister is good news. While it is very easy to be very tabloid in talking about a bonfire of red tape, it is extremely difficult to replace the likes of REACH, the working time directive and aircraft regulations. Therefore, it makes sense in our view not to do that.

Separately, in dealing with our Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I mentioned earlier that it is in connection with the CSRD and the CRDDD that the UK is missed in Europe as a counterweight to the constant desire to over-regulate. The UK has had very good laws for years on human slavery, for example. One does not need directives that are 90 pages long to stop businesses dealing in human slavery. Directives coming from Brussels start with "Whereas", followed by 80 pages of text. Life is too short for me to read that stuff, so I try to avoid it.

A specific point was made on something that is worrying us about the border operating model. It is too early to say how it will work but it could be said that the Northern Ireland diversion could work in both ways. One of our customs officials emailed me earlier to say Northern Ireland traders are getting customs write-offs – €200,000 every three years from the British Government – and that the handling of VAT and customs in Northern Ireland could lead to perverse incentives to route Great Britain-bound traffic through Northern Ireland for Irish traders. We will have to understand how that will work in the long run. What we do not want to see is the gaming of the system in either direction. There is concern that the Windsor Framework will introduce incentives to start gaming the system in one direction or the other. We know there is always a temptation to do that.

On the service economy, I agree on Mr. Farry's point. We have see it borne out in the legal area. I am aware that the Law Society has spoken of attempts to brass-plate legal entities over here. The same applies to medical qualifications and to plumbing and electrical work – some of the really simple stuff. Products such as vehicles, or parts of the braking or exhaust mechanisms, must be constructed to an EU standard. There is a lot of cross-border movement of intermediate products. One of the largest forklift suppliers in the world is plonked right on the Border. If there is to be a lot of divergence by the UK, it will hurt the Republic as well.