Mr. Neil McDonnell:

To answer some of the questions that have come up, first, it is not just about us when we make the pleas for small businesses. The caution we are giving the committee is that we have had a number of soft budgets because corporation tax has ballooned over the last number of years, but in nine months this year we have seen how potentially under threat that corporation tax golden goose is. A US drug company located within the Deputy’s constituency has changed its jurisdiction back to the United States to avoid whatever consequences might come its way. Straight away, that is going to be a direct and immediate loss of corporation tax. We cannot rely on it. We do not knock FDI, and the only customers of some of our members are FDI businesses, but putting all our eggs in that basket is not going to work.

On the minimum wage, going back to what Mr. Filan said, we do try to pay our employees as best we can, but cost is not just a business killer but also an employee killer. Our minimum wage is the second highest in Europe in absolute terms. Once we start measuring it on a purchasing power parity basis, it falls right down because our costs are too high. As the representatives of ICTU said last week, once you start measuring it on the basis of 60% of the median income, it also falls, but the reason it falls is that 15% of employees in the country are working for the State and they are on the highest wages in the State. They are actually paid 4% more than FDI workers. We then have 40% of workers in FDI making more than €1,000 a week. It always depends on how we measure things, but unless the SMEs get more productive, the money is not in the till to pay people any more money. The total annualised income of the minimum wage is €27,000. As Mr. Filan said, it is much better to annualise it. That is €2,200 a month. The average rent across the country now is in excess of €1,800. The minimum wage is never going to be able to pay people to meet the rent demands out there. The only way we will deal with that is by decreasing the cost of rent, not increasing the minimum wage.

I absolutely agree with the Deputy on regulation. We are not seeking to remove all regulation. I have described it in here many times as being like an anaesthetic. We want enough anaesthetic to take the pain away but not enough to kill the patient. What we want out of regulation is fair and affordable regulation. As Mr. Filan says, if the SMEs are not in the room, then we are going to get regulation that suits big businesses. They always cry about regulation, but in business terms, highly regulated businesses are what Warren Buffett would call big moat stocks. They have big moats around them, such as Airbus. It is not possible to make a cheap plane, and such a company makes massive profits because others cannot compete against it. We just need sensible regulation.