Dr. Tom McDonnell:

We are talking about a generational shift that would involve extremely difficult choices. We are talking about countries which have much higher tax rates than we do, and much larger social safety nets. They have built this up from the first half of the 20th century. It is something that is built up over time, essentially as a three-way partnership between the state, employers and the broader labour movement. Essentially, the agreement was to focus on labour peace in return for reinvestment in the economy by business and large contributions by business towards employee education, child care and so on. That then provided what became known as the social democratic welfare state, which allowed a high level of human capital to be generated. By human capital I mean low levels of poverty and high levels of education, so that there is a very highly qualified workforce, which of course takes decades to build. There are also high value-added industries. They are paying their workers a lot of money, but they are high value-added. Deputy Neville is dead right about Norway. Norway has oil. I would not count Luxembourg as a Nordic country, but there is also Denmark-----