Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. I will not repeat some of the issues that have been gone through already. There are a couple of items of real interest I want to raise.

On the energy costs, I today got an email from Wind Energy Ireland that said there was a record amount of wind and solar energy for June, yet there is a 30% difference in what we and the witnesses pay compared with the rest of Europe. That has to be addressed, not only for businesses, but for everybody. When we are seeing such a shift to wind and solar and there has been such an uptake, why are we still paying 30% more? I am interested in the witnesses' thoughts on that.

On employee costs, I hear the witnesses on the increases and how difficult it is. On the other side, there are the employees and the people who work for the firms who are also experiencing a massive increase in the cost of living. When it comes to the cost of the food the witnesses are selling, that is food the employees are buying. The cost of childcare is increasing all the time. The cost of energy, which we just talked about, to heat employees' homes and pay for their electricity and gas is increasing massively.

Then there is the question of affordable rent. We have not really mentioned the cost of housing. The Dublin Chamber of Commerce mentioned it was one of the larger issues it faced in trying to get people to work. If people cannot come here to live and pay rent, then businesses will suffer and struggle. What are the witnesses' thoughts on how that impacts?

Theft and antisocial behaviour comprise a very complex issue. There are people who might have addiction issues who steal, there are people who steal because of the cost of living and then there are others who steal to order, to make money and to do whatever they want with that. I do not see a real process or examination of how we deal with this on an ongoing basis. I watched a programme recently on theft in retail - I think it was by RTÉ - and the real cost of theft. If someone breaks into a shop and steals €100 worth of something, there may be €1,000 of damage. We hear of the €100 that was taken but we do not hear of someone getting up at 3 a.m., getting a security company and an alarm company in, getting someone out to fix the window and all those different costs. That never seems to be factored into the consequences of all of that. What are the witnesses' thoughts on what we need to do? Do we need a report to look at the real costs of theft and shoplifting?

Then there are the consequences. Are the consequences at play now having an effect? Clearly, they are not but what do we need to do differently? My personal belief is that prison does not work for the vast majority of people. It is short term. For most of these offences, it will be very short term. Just this week, people in prison for very serious crimes are being released very early because of massive overcrowding in our prison system, so we have to look at something different. What could we do differently that might have an impact?