Margaret Cox (Fianna Fail)

Will the Leader invite the Tánaiste to come before the House – hopefully before the recess – to discuss the issue of our competitiveness and the difficulties that businesses, particularly small and medium-sized firms, are facing? From next February the minimum wage will be raised to €7 per hour. This will have an impact on businesses at a time when we have failed to deal with the issue of increasing insurance costs – public liability and employers' liability – and when the cost of rent and rates has continued to rise.

While we never outstripped the basic unit cost of manufacturing in Asia or the Philippines, we were at least beating that of the United States. Organisations based in the west have indicated to me that we are no longer beating the US dollar price for the unit cost of manufacturing. The implication of this is that manufacturing will be moved out of Ireland. We have not moved high enough up the value chain to be able to sustain that loss.

The Tánaiste should come before the House as a matter of urgency so that, when we return after the summer recess, we will have some idea about how it is proposed to halt the drain of jobs which, in my opinion, will happen later this year and early next year.