Mr. Liam Griffin:

I do not have much to add, except for a few snippets. I have been in business for 38 years now and work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We started with four staff and now have 400 and are trying desperately hard to keep them all at work. With regard to the rates issue, I wrote a cheque yesterday for Wexford County Council for €27,000 for one business.

I wrote another cheque for Wexford County Council for €27,900 and a cheque for Kilkenny County Council for €29,000 last Friday. On Sunday morning, I picked up the rubbish around the roads outside a world famous destination spa, of which I am very proud. We got world recognition and came third in the world twice. I cannot ask my staff to pick up the rubbish on the roads because it is against health and safety rules so I picked up the rubbish before I went to the match in Croke Park. I do it every Sunday morning and that is what I get from my local authority. It is criminal. Will my children do that? Not a chance. Why should they?

I am concerned about the domestic economy. I am involved as a volunteer in my local community. I deserve no praise for that because I do it because I want to. I have watched a club and county decimated of youngsters. We have five boys cutting corn in Australia who are gifted and very bright. This is a serious issue. There has been much talk, many meetings and reports but I am telling the committee the time for change has come. We have distilled this pot down to the base and if we do not get this pot right, we will subject our grandchildren to penury as well so this is urgent. All I am saying to the committee is that focused attention beats brilliance every time and it is time for focused attention and people to be decision makers and make serious recommendations. I have seen the GAA reports year-on-year with no action but, in fairness to our association, it is very good to take action in most areas and I am proud of it. However, if the committee saw the report in the Sunday Independentlast Sunday about what is happening throughout the country from Donegal to Kerry back to Wexford and all the way up along to the Border and the devastation caused to small rural clubs and the impact that is having on all our families and people, it will see it is unbelievable. I am fully supportive of the Entrepreneur of the Year programme and proud to have been in Silicon Valley this year, to have seen many things and to have had my eyes opened. I would like to see the people of this country get a fair chance and rules and regulations not all favouring the ruling class and working against the people who are trying to generate income. If we cannot generate enough income to support the ruling class, what happens next? I can tell the committee it will be some form of political revolution and many people in this room will not be part of it.

I appeal to the committee to read Mr. O'Keeffe's report. I have studied the G20 document. Why would we reinvent the wheel? That has been produced by the young entrepreneurs that will show the committee that Brazil and Canada leave us trailing in their wake. We were ahead of some of those countries a few years ago and it is up to us to create the circumstances. This is a very powerful committee if its title means what it says - the Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. If this committee has power and teeth, it should be one of the major committees in this country to change it and turn it around, provided it is listened to and has the courage to do it as well. As an involved entrepreneur, I appeal to it to pay attention to what Mr. O'Keeffe has given us because it contains the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am talking here on behalf of my grandchildren.