Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Now, precisely as we predicted, the austerity applied in Ireland and subsequently extended to the rest of Europe is causing the European market to contract and this contraction is hitting our manufacturing sector. Is the Minister seriously suggesting that the contraction that is taking place in the rest of the European economy will not impact on Ireland or choke off exports, the sector the Government repeatedly states will save the economy?

I have said it here several times, and to Deputy Boyd Barrett, that our model is export-led growth. Because our model is export-led growth, if our customer countries are in decline, we will sell less. I gave the Deputy the statistics. We export about 20% to the United States, 20% to the UK, 40% to the rest of Europe outside the UK and 20% to the rest of the world. What is happening at present is that the United States is back on a very strong growth pattern. The emerging markets are growing very strongly and world growth will come in around 3.4% or 3.5% in 2013, but the UK and Europe are showing very low growth rates and, of course, that is affecting us. The main difficulty with the statistics to which the Deputy referred has to do with key pharmaceuticals running out of patent. I said a year ago that this would happen, because the IDA has been predicting it, and it is an open secret. We have a couple of advantages. One is that we export many food products and many medical devices. Both of them are inelastic in demand. I am sure the Deputy is familiar with the term.