Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 24 October 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Cost of Doing Business in Ireland: Discussion (Resumed)

11:00 am

Mr. Ian Talbot:

I am pretty sure that they are in our detailed submission. What we are now starting to hear is the concern from business coming through, particularly going into 2018. We are at the point now where businesses are making their budgets for 2018. Their concern is that they are going to sit down with their members of staff who are going to say that they expect a big increase in 2018. It has not actually come through but businesses are very concerned it is coming through. It is being fed by several things. It is being fed by the housing crisis, the increase in rents and so on and by the perception of increases being passed through in public sector jobs. People are looking at the percentages and are saying they should get that and that we have all had five, six or seven tough years, so it is their turn. It is back to the point about trying to make sure that the fruits of our recovery go into improvements in disposable income rather than being soaked up in costs, or people even falling back even though they are getting salary increases.