Mr. Ian Talbot:

On the VAT rate, if one simply takes the amount of income earned, which is taxed at 9%, and tax it at 13.5%, one gets a big number. The question for us is what will happen if we are even 4.5% less competitive? We must also consider that depreciation in the value of sterling might potentially put people off coming to eurozone areas. It is not just an Irish problem. There is a risk of Irish consumers heading to the UK. There are several risks that could undermine the amount of revenue we collect that would be taxed, whether the rate is 9% or 13.5%.

The other issue that came through very strongly from our network was the regional-rural impacts that could arise from this. Our geographic mandate means we are very focused on towns, villages and communities across the country. We have some way to go before we get the tourism and the recovery fully out to all those areas. I mentioned things such as the national planning framework. It is really important to ensure we target investment so people can understand where they fit into the national planning framework. Are they one of the cities that will be developed or are they a rural area that needs to link into it? We feel the retention of the 9% rate is important to retain jobs particularly in regional and rural areas.

On the other question about the lack of diversification, there are several ways of looking at it. There is diversification in what they do and diversification in the markets in which they sell. We are all hoping to see further supports and hopefully EU support for further supports to assist companies to diversify the markets they are selling into. We focus on things such as the need to upgrade ports infrastructures to facilitate Irish exporters with more direct access into EU markets from our ports rather than having to, for example, go across the UK. With regard to the diversification of the products and services companies, we are a very innovative nation and we have lots of things going on. The challenge for us is to get more of those companies exporting.

We have a huge amount of stuff going on. We all have recommendations for how we might help promote research and development.