Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

From my own perspective, after meeting with IBEC yesterday, and we met a lot of companies from around the country, some of which had an international presence as well, their concerns were that, in their trade with the likes of the US and other countries, they were going to price themselves out of the market with the way the structure is set up here with energy costs, water costs, PRSI costs and so on. They can actually reflect off the other companies they have internationally and they are saying now that they are finding it hard to tell their sister companies that it is costing them 10%, 15% or 20% more to have the same output here as what it costs in other countries. With the US market being so volatile at present, if those companies see that it is costing 15% or 20% more here for their companies to grow due to energy and water costs, housing for people, and replacements for people into the markets so that they can have people who are on one skill level whom they can elevate and they can have people coming in on another level, is there a fear that they could relocate? We are talking about companies that have massive resources and are massive employers in this country, but it was not only coming from them. It was actually coming from the SMEs - the smaller sector - as well. Every one of the smaller businesses was telling me the exact same thing as the large companies, whether they operate internationally or not. Is that a concern the witnesses have? If it is, how are we going to neutralise it so that they will look at Ireland and say they are going to stay here? How do we make it beneficial for them to stay?