Mr. Neil McDonnell:

I talk to recruiters, for example in Dublin. Not too far from here we have Silicon Docks where young people under 30 years of age have average earnings of €150,000. Realistically, we are not going to be competing in that space. Not a lot of people necessarily want to keep up with the pace that is required to deliver those sorts of earnings over a lifetime. What small businesses like this have to offer is locality. If a person is not working on a farm, in a small business or in local government down the country, they are unemployed. What we have is location. We have employment close to where people live. Small businesses are what keep people in towns. The difficulty comes when a business is trying to go up the wage chain. It is difficult a lot of the time to attract talent such as managers and people with professional skills. That is where it becomes difficult. The toughest competitor for an awful lot of businesses, believe it or not, is actually the public sector. When there are two jobs available, someone is much more likely to take a job in the local authority or the Civil Service because the wage packet and the pension are extremely attractive, compared to what is available in the private sector. It is very difficult to square that circle and give equality between them without raising productivity. Productivity is the way to go.