Mr. Ultan Courtney:

That is an important contribution. I certainly noticed it last year when I holidayed in Ireland. I go down to various little places for a few days. I did notice that and I do talk to people. Our submissions do not just come from oral submissions from vulnerable employees and proper submissions from trade unions and workers. They come from talking to people and listening to what they have to say. I noticed that in certain sectors, and certainly in the restaurant trade, there was something happening and there was something not right. This is anecdotal; it is not research-based, I am afraid. I can only give the Senator my understanding, which concurs a bit with what he is saying. I noticed that a lot of windows had signs up saying they were not open on Mondays and Tuesdays. There were situations where employers seemed exasperated, in the few conversations I had with people directly. "How's business?" is my introduction when talking to people and they would say they were finding it difficult as people were not spending because costs were rising or this kind of stuff. There are definitely difficulties in sectors but when you go to other sectors, you would not get that. People were reasonably okay with things but in that particular aspect, there was a concern in my mind. That is why the debate at the commission became very good as regards the employer supports. We want to make sure we do not leave them too exposed and see what we can do. We do understand. I remember a statistic I saw somewhere stating that about 50% of new businesses do not make it, so it is hard enough as it is. They do not make it for lots of reasons. We did not want to contribute towards that but that is something we are very conscious about. There is a great deal of debate at the commission on the best policy to do that. Just as we know we cannot get everyone to agree with us, we also know that a one-size-fits-all approach is probably the best we can do, understanding that it might impact some worse than others.