George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour)

I thank the people from the Nevin Economic Research Institute and the ICTU for their contributions this morning, which have been most enlightening. The disadvantage of coming this far back in the line is that most of the stuff one would have wanted to cover has been covered. I have a couple of observations in relation to competitiveness. It is great to have representatives of the workers here. As one of my colleagues alluded to, I think it is the first time we have had representatives at this committee representing workers. In terms of competitiveness and the cost of living, the long and short of it is that the key component of the cost of living for workers and their families at the minute is the cost of housing. When we talk about wage constraints and things like that and people's plea for higher wages, it comes about as a result of the fact they need them if they want to exist. Deputy Gogarty referred to houses at €650,000 in an area where he lives. Trying to finance the likes of that would require substantial wage packets to be coming in every month. Certainly, from my point of view, I can give an example of the difficulties that workers face. In my constituency of Wexford, workers who are a couple earning the minimum wage each, maybe with a couple of children, will be a few thousand euro above the threshold to receive any social housing assistance. We can imagine a situation where they are earning €38,000 in total and have that coming into the house and because they do not get any assistance whatsoever, they may be asked to pay somewhere between €15,000 and €20,000 of that into the private rental sector. We can imagine the pressure on that family. Housing is the nub in many respects of how we tackle our competitiveness in the area of workers' wages because if they cannot afford to live, they are not going to hang around. They are going to go to other countries or other areas where they can attain better wages.

In the area of collective bargaining, have the witnesses found in their experience that where companies engage in collective bargaining, there is a greater relationship or effectiveness and viability of those companies? In Wexford, one of the most long-standing companies has been there for more than 50 years. One of the prerequisites of joining that company at the time, which was a German company, was that people had to join the union because the company's view was that it did not want to be talking to Johnny in this corner and Mary in that corner; it wanted a collective approach. Even 50 years ago, it wanted a collective approach because, effectively, it was the company's union that was doing the negotiating for both it and the workers, if you like, in terms of deals. Have the witnesses found in their experience that where collective bargaining is in place, there are more effective and more viable companies in terms of the relationships they have with their workers and their dealings with their workers? That is one area.

Tomorrow in the audiovisual room I will host a presentation on employee ownership trusts. This is something that is quite successful in the UK. We do not have the proper taxation structure in place in Ireland to make it attractive to have employee ownership trusts. Indeed, every working day of this year, an Irish company has been sold into foreign ownership such is the level of interest. We are obviously doing something right because foreign companies are coming in and have purchased one Irish company every day this year. Has any work or study been done or has any experience been attained in relation to employee ownership trusts? It is something that if we put the right mechanisms in place could be very attractive to a lot of companies in Ireland and, indeed, the employees in terms of productivity and competitiveness and the drive with that company.

Finally, I will mention access to affordable finance, particularly in the areas of SMEs. After the crash, banks became so careful - ultra careful - in relation to the way they operated pre-crash. Have the witnesses any documentation on where companies and SMEs are struggling to find access to affordable finance? The availability of affordable finance without major hurdles to jump over is problematic for them.