Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

I thank the witness for appearing before us this evening. The point that Mr. Brady made on existing levels of service, ELS, is well made. It has been a theme of the engagement we have had with IFAC, the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO, and others that, putting it diplomatically, that the ELS process could be more transparent, and the methodology could improve and ought to be more consistent from year to year. We know the PBO is doing some work on that at present. I welcome Mr. Brady's comments on that. I also welcome, if I understood him correctly, IBEC's position that there ought to be, as it were, a golden rule in terms of any new spending rule that might be introduced in respect of the public capital budget. That ought to be introduced. That is absolutely necessary.

The provision of targeted support for sectors on the front line was mentioned in terms of absorbing the impact of the new tariff regime and the current uncertain trading regime. I welcomed recent comments by IBEC that tie in with the vision I have had for many years now, namely, the introduction of a form of a wage support scheme. It would be loosely based perhaps on the German Kurzarbeit model. It would be one we could dust down in times of economic uncertainty to help important sectors of our economy to stabilise during difficult periods and retain jobs and skills. If we can learn anything from the last crash, it is that we failed miserably to retain construction workers. We are paying the price of that failure now. Is this the kind of scheme IBEC has in mind?