Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The questions related to the competitiveness challenge report. Deputy Boyd Barrett, to be fair to him, spoke to the report and the question that was asked. I acknowledge his aversion or discomfort with the word "competition" but we need a competitive economy. Competition at a certain level can bring standards, although it can have the opposite impact in different contexts. We need a competitive economy and that needs good infrastructure, which needs to develop. Housing for workers, for example, is a big challenge for us in order to continue to create economic opportunities in cities and towns across the country. People need places to live in comfort and there needs to be a good public realm to facilitate the attraction of companies, whether foreign direct investment, FDI, or indigenous companies, to various towns and cities. "Competitiveness" is a broad term but it is an important aspect of national policy. It is important we have the annual competitiveness challenge report and that the Government benchmarks its performance against emerging issues.

On the issue relating to EWSS, PUP and CRSS, the intervention by the Government has been unprecedented in supporting incomes and in supporting companies and businesses to keep workers on their payroll in order that we will be in a position to bounce back when we come out of Covid. We have done well this year since March and the emergence of the Alpha variant crisis. We have reopened society and the economy and our exports have done very well since then. Manufacturing has increased, construction is going well in terms of activity levels and house construction, and retail has had a bounceback. Revenues are strong. The Exchequer deficit will be much smaller than originally envisaged. We were facing a deficit of €18 billion to €19 billion but that could be closer to €10 billion at the end of the year.

The economy has been managed well and competently by the Government so far. Of course, there are challenges in respect of how we evolve from a pandemic era back to normality. Because the EWSS and CRSS supports are so unprecedented, there has to be a judgment call at some stage as to how to amend them or evolve out of those schemes, which are economy wide, with a view to, perhaps, having more bespoke supports for different sectors. We need a bespoke support-----

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