Mr. Finbarr Filan:

I am a manufacturing engineer by profession. I worked with large multinationals where we dealt with productivity all the time. In my store, we have cut our labour hours from 550 to 500, but that is it. My next option is to shut earlier and cut hours. There is an opinion out there that we have to become more productive. That is fine if you are a manufacturing industry where there is the opportunity, but if you are a barber, barman, storekeeper or bookseller, there is only a certain limit you can come to. Most of us are at that limit already because we have been fighting the cost battle for years. We have now come to the point, which goes back to Senator Murray's question, of asking what the next thing will be. We have done all we can.