Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I will not accept that at all. I will accept that we will do what we promised the people we were going to do to in the general election. Not too many of us in here, including myself, have had to lie awake at night wondering how we are going to pay the wage bill. Not many of us have to wonder that if we get sick and cannot run the café where our income is going to come from. Not too many of us have had to worry about the insurance cost of running a small business. In general, people come in here with good ideas about how they are going to come up with new policies that will increase costs for small- and medium-sized businesses. That is fine if that is what they want to do, but it is not the politics we practice. The services in this country - education, health, social welfare, pensions, carers, our salaries - are all funded on the back of people who run businesses. Breaking news: enterprise and creating profits are good things. Employing people is a really good thing.

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