Mr. Finbarr Filan:

We need to have a voice and that voice needs to be listened to and heard. We have to start at the top. Small businesses do not have a voice on LEEF. It is as simple as that. Whether we like it or not, that is where the decisions are made, so we need a voice on LEEF. That would be a start.

Then we have to tumble that down the whole way through. We need to have a real SME test for all legislation going through the Houses. It is not just a tick-the-box SME test; it has to be a real SME test. It should be tested by SMEs, not by civil servants. It is like the issue described - the system does not work. We have plenty of systems. We are bringing in a vape and cigarette tax for small businesses. It will cost me €1,900 to put a piece of paper on the wall that says I can sell cigarettes and vapes. We have been selling them for 100 years, so why do we need a tax? It is not going to fix the problem of too many people smoking.

We have to get rid of the silos in all our public bodies. A saying we use in Sligo is that it is the horizontal integration of the vertical silos. We have to knock down the walls because one Department can say it is putting an extra cost on business and that it is only 2%, but when ten of them do it, that is 20%. That is what has happened with the minimum wage and all the other costs. ISME lobbied for a minimum wage and auto-enrolment for pensions for over 30 years, but when we bring in auto-enrolment and the minimum wage has gone up by 35%, the sums just do not add up. That is why we must have a real SME test, knock down the silos and have a voice at the top table and then a voice at every table down from that.

The only places in which we get to talk openly are the retail forum and the competitiveness council. That is it. We make valuable contributions to both those bodies and would do the same at every table.