Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

I thank the Minister for his response and Deputy O'Callaghan for articulating his support for the proposal. It is an area that is ripe for more work. It might be an area that the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Burke, and their officials could potentially continue to explore. My colleague, Deputy George Lawlor, has done a considerable amount of work in this regard. I am aware that the IPSA has met officials from the Department and that was a positive engagement. I am convinced that the Department understands the area and the barriers as well. It is certainly an area that can be developed here. Our systems, whether it be our taxation system, legal system and so on, are directly comparable with the UK. They have managed to successfully reform the situation there since 2014. The last time I checked, it was probably about 1,600 or 1,700 firms that may otherwise have been sold to private equity firms and others but which went on to be majority owned by their employees since those reforms were introduced in 2014.

As Deputy O'Callaghan said, there is a lot of evidence available that would suggest there are productivity gains to be had. As I said in my earlier contribution, there are very few, if any, Irish firms of a scale that are being bought or have a majority stake in them from their staff because of the barriers that exist at the moment. The barriers are one of the reasons. There are other reasons as well. Certainly, founders I speak to and engage with all the time in my constituency and elsewhere state that this is an area they would like to explore and that they would like their staff to be able to benefit in the success of a company. This is a kind of a modern reform of stakeholder capitalism, if we can describe it as such. It is an interesting area. It is something that we need to explore. It is evolving all the time. We are behind the curve here in Ireland. There are too many Irish firms where the only option for a founder is to sell to private equity and to people with deep pockets from outside of this jurisdiction and outside of the European Union. We have a focus and I know the Minister is aware of the risks here of our excess reliance on foreign direct investment. This is one way we can shift the dial a little.