Mr. Ian Talbot:

Deputy Tóibín mentioned corporation tax and there should be a cap on what can be reclaimed in any one year. The advice we got from accounting an tax professionals in the group is that a three-year period, given where we are in the economic cycle, is not long enough to prove whether a business will succeed or fail. That is why we propose a five-year period, with a cap to limit any Exchequer exposure.

We are formulating proposals to get entrepreneurs thinking about establishing and growing businesses, as currently they are not doing so. People are still afraid to invest in the future and we are trying to think of ideas that will encourage, stimulate and give people a sense that the Government is behind them, although perhaps in a number of small ways rather than one big way. A number of incentives could contribute a couple of thousand euro to help businesses keep the doors open.

With regard to research and development, the manner in which we produced the proposal was to recognise that there are State resources with significant pools of money for investment. We want to have the State companies responsible for taking 2.5% of their budget and ensuring this is pushed out to small businesses. There is not much take-up now but we want to try to get 2.5% accountable to a sponsoring Department getting into small businesses and making innovation projects work. We did not really get into the challenges of raising matched funding and so on and we wanted a combination of carrot and stick. That would allow people with budgets to be empowered and encouraged to get out there, find ideas in small businesses and deliver to them. It is a psychological incentive as much as anything else and getting people's mindsets - particularly in the semi-State and public sector - to focus on getting some of that budget into the right type of companies.