Ms Patricia Callan:

There is an issue, too, with the definition of an SME. The definition used is the EU definition, which includes any company with fewer than 250 employees. In this country, however, there are only 500 companies employing more than 250 people. By that definition, many of the multinationals operating here are categorised as SMEs. We need to see what is happening with micro-enterprises, which make up 84% of all businesses, and small companies, which make up 97%. That is the level at which we need to see the data.