Mr. Simon McKeever:

I reassure Deputy Bruton that we got many things right in recent years. The reason Covid-19 and Brexit have not been mentioned this morning is that they are not big, pressing issues. We are here to discuss the current challenges. Brexit will continue to be an issue for this country because the UK looks as though it will go into medium- to long-term economic decline. That will have an impact on businesses here. Germany is now our second biggest export market. Britain no longer features in that. It is now our fifth or sixth biggest export market. Germany is now the second most important market we have.

A few issues were raised. I am not an expert on how to solve the lack of accommodation or housing, but I bumped into a developer this morning who is also a private landlord. He is exiting the private landlord business because he cannot make any money from it. His simple message to me this morning was that people need to understand there is a problem with the funding model and that outside funders, commonly known as vulture funds, are needed to provide funding. Perhaps the State needs to step into a funding capacity to allow developers to build houses.

On the skills piece, many things are going on. As we have reached full employment, there are simply not enough people to fill the jobs. Many of our companies, especially at the general operative level, want to bring people in from abroad, whether from parts of the EU or beyond. There are simply not enough people here. During the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the things that happened with those general operatives who keep many of the factories operating is - they are a mobile workforce. They can go from working in a meat plant to a construction site. Many of them moved to the businesses that stayed open during the Covid-19 pandemic and many went into the construction sector in the UK. They are mobile and will go wherever the jobs are. We simply do not have enough people.

Deputy Bruton and Mr. Talbot mentioned the education and training supports such as Skillnet Ireland and Springboard. It goes back to a question raised by Deputy O'Reilly earlier. What needs to be done with the micro-companies to get them going? The three of us are all micro-businesses and I guarantee that we are all time-poor. The ability of a small business to stop the clock in order to spend time trying to develop things is a big issue. There are 12 or 14 people in my business and I am doing ten jobs. Everyone does a bit of everyone else's job and the 12 people are doing the work of 16 or 18 people. It is something we need to try to solve.

We must try to grow a skill set akin to successful businesses. Enterprise Ireland is extremely successful and I know from having worked for a foreign government, that it is the envy of many countries because of the way it goes about its business. We have some good supports and programmes, but small businesses have a problem in trying to find the time to develop. How do they get beyond that piece of not having the time? They might also not have the funds, though some support is available.

I will bring in Mr. Picard to speak about the upcoming legislation for workers, the Employment Permits Bill 2022. There are few things in it that we think need to be looked at.