Mr. Neil McDonnell:

A lot of the time, there is an expectation on members' side that we are looking for free money. Businesses are not looking for grants. I am talking about grants to meet energy costs, for example. At the point where one cannot afford one's energy bill, one is on a slippery slope to insolvency. Businesses are looking for competitiveness and for prices to be lowered.

The biggest driver of wage demand, and why workers are knocking on the door all the time, completely understandably, is the cost of accommodation. We have set up the economy such that the provision of rental accommodation has fallen off a cliff over the past ten years because of regulation and a change in tax treatment. We now have the position whereby employers have become accidental landlords. Retailers such as Mr. Filan are constantly asking how we can energise the living over the shop scheme. There is now an expectation that employees of small employers will be given free or subsidised accommodation.

On the slightly deeper point raised by the Leas-Chathaoirleach, there is Department of Finance analysis on page 6. We have been patting ourselves on the back about the workforce getting to 2.8 million but at the micro end it is not productive. We are basically setting up subsistence businesses. I know a lot of them are potentially start-ups, and we would not expect them to be making money in year one or year two, but the Revenue figures on page 4 were alluded to by Mr. Filan. There are 122,000 businesses that made a negative tax return. Averages can be deceiving but on average these businesses have lost €13,000 trading during the year. The only way out of this is to get these businesses productive. If they are productive they can expand. This means there has to be a return on the business. The sales have to be bigger than the cost of sales. If they are not, that business is not productive. This can be sustained for a year or two but it cannot be sustained for years three, four or five. Otherwise, the two people the business will be having an uncomfortable conversation with are Revenue and the bank manager, and at that point they have run out of road.