Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

A substantial part of my agenda is contained in the business regulation forum's report, which I launched on 25 April. We will also draw from the work of the ESRI survey of business attitudes to regulation. They are important inputs into the work of the high level group.

It is also worth putting on record that the World Bank's report, Doing Business in 2006, ranked Ireland tenth out of 175 countries in terms of the ease of starting and running a business. The World Economic Forum's Global Competiveness Report 06-07, showed that Ireland compared favourably on a number of regulatory indicators. The International Institute for Management Development, IIMD, competitiveness scoreboard for 2006 showed that Ireland compared favourably on a number of regulatory indicators including ease of doing business. I wish to put that on record. There is a tendency to overdo it in this country in terms of negative commentary about everything, including competitiveness etc. We need a balanced debate on these issues.

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