Mr. Sean Collender:

The Senator asked about policy changes. As I said earlier, the reality is the programme for Government includes VAT returning to 9%. We have all welcomed that, we just want it to become reality now. It will alleviate that cost pressure we spoke about across the board in all areas. The reduction of PRSI for the lower paid of our staff would be welcome. Low pay and minimum wage need to be looked at and linked to inflation. The increases that have happened in the past couple of years have gone up to 28%. Those big increases are unsustainable when we are already faced with many other increases. Not for a single moment does anyone want to curtail the minimum wage but the reality is we are trying to operate a business as well. There has to be some sort of common sense approach to that.