Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

I thank everyone for their contributions. On infrastructure, I have been banging on about investment in research and development for a decade or more, particularly investment in critical renewable energy infrastructure but nothing has happened. We talk about the €13 billion of Apple money in the escrow account that we can use now, alongside our potential ability to borrow for strategic projects. There are issues with the grid as well as the actual infrastructure for offshore wind and so on. I am a big supporter of wave technology and research and development in respect of it, but we are way behind in that regard. Will Mr. Gibbons comment on the inertia that exists? If legislators are raising it and if, as the Chair of this committee is saying, Ministers have less power now, how do we get the kick up the backside that we need to actually get the public on board to drive it? At the moment, people are using the green argument, pointing to climate change objectives and so on but we are fighting a rearguard action against troll farms to even prove that climate change exists. What does exist are the bread and butter issues and people's pockets. For example, if we are importing €6 billion worth of oil, coal and gas, but we could be a net energy exporter, reduce our energy costs and create an income for the country, that is a no-brainer. We do not have to sell that to anyone. How do we get that message across to the collective, to politicians and to the people, to drive it? We need some sort of electric shock therapy in that regard.

I also have a question in relation to the adequate minimum wages directive. How do we get the argument across about the fact that Ireland has a very low median wage? We hear many arguments that our mean wages are high and that we are doing very well comparatively. In terms of the median wage, however, we are doing quite badly. I ask our guests to elaborate on how that argument could be pushed further. Obviously, wages are being pushed up because costs are being pushed up. I have a friend who lived in the North of Ireland for ten years and who noticed that all of the people working on forecourts looked like they were born and bred in Northern Ireland. They all had Northern Irish accents and their skin was white, whereas down here in the South, 20 years ago we began to see eastern Europeans and people from Asia starting to work on forecourts. A large majority of native Irish people do not work in those jobs because the wages on offer will not pay the bills. It is as simple as that. Northern Ireland had lower costs and lower social welfare rates and, therefore, the money people earn in those sorts of jobs actually means something. If you try to feed a family on the wages from those sorts of jobs in the South, it is a no-brainer to realise that it is not possible to do so.

I have a related question on immigration policy, because we do need workers coming in. We would not have activity in a lot of sectors without those workers. I will give an example that I have mentioned previously at this committee. I know of one housing estate in my constituency where three- and four-bedroom houses cost around €650,000. Between 85% and 90% of the people who have bought those houses were born overseas. Obviously, they are working in high-paying sectors. Although IDA Ireland policy is to spread foreign direct investment around the country, many companies want to locate in Dublin. Therefore, for someone who works as a nurse, a garda or a teacher, the price of an affordable house has gone up. What is our guests' view on things like software localisation, where our policy is to attract companies in to create jobs for people but where they are bringing in people from the EU and beyond to work in high-paid jobs? They are actually dragging people in to work in jobs for the profits of the company, not because we need the jobs for our own workforce. Do we need to rethink matters and focus more on homegrown research and development?

In terms of bringing in workers for construction, are we talking about high-paid, skilled workers or other types of workers? If we created a living wage, more people might be likely to work in those historically lower paying jobs. Is there a balance to be struck? I am interested in hearing our guests' views on those issues.