Mr. Neil McDonnell:

I want to address the issue of advocacy because, to be fair, no one here has a dog in the fight. It is defined by EU law as 50% of mean or 60% of median, whichever is higher. We recognise that issue. Our difficulty with the Brussels position on this is that the European definition does not take account of the structure of the Irish economy. By that I mean that 49% of Irish workers are employed either by a multinational or by the State, and the wage differential is substantial. In the UK, the private sector average pay is now ahead of the public sector, which would be expected at the top of the wage cycle. Here, it is 10% lower on average. The particular issue is that the average weekly wage in the public sector here is €1,114 and in an SME it is €759. The average industrial wage across the board is €769 because effectively half the workforce is working for a multinational or the State. It is very easy to say we are in trouble with Europe because of adequacy. The small business cannot compete. That is what we mean by the crowding effect in the economy. We are not able to compete with the foreign multinationals and the State on wages.