Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)

That is fine and grand in Mr. Talbot's situation as the head of Chambers Ireland, but if he goes around the country he will find that for many businesses the issues may be local rather than national. Unfortunately, in many cases they do not have a lobby group to be able to lobby local authorities and local government for whatever they need done to deal with the issues they are facing. Over the years, I have seen a drop-off in the number of chambers of commerce and in the effectiveness of the remaining chambers. Publicly funded chambers of commerce might not be able to lobby as Mr. Talbot might want by virtue of being connected to the system, but at the same time we need those bodies in place. It might be okay. It is very hard these days to get volunteerism in Ireland to the level required to run effective, efficient chambers.