Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

I appreciate Senator Butler's sharing his time with me. I thank the Minister of State for being in the House once again. I will tell the story of a business whose owner has written to me.

The Minister of State does not like to be accused of being out of touch. I will not tell him he is out of touch because perhaps I am out of touch as well. We have said the blame game is over. If that is so, the Government must consider real solutions that could save business. I compliment Senator Phelan on his motion and the minutiae of the solutions he proposes. I ask the Minister of State to listen. The Government met the leaders of all the parties today and Ministers said they are interested in consensus. Let us be genuine about it.

Business is in real trouble. Here is an account sent to me by the owner of a recruitment firm:

As an indication of what has happened in some private sector companies let me briefly outline what has happened in this company. Since 2008, 13 of the 27 employees have had to be let go. The remainder had their salaries reduced by 30% and had their commission arrangements cancelled. I, as the managing director, took a 70% pay-cut, as I could not see how I could impose 30% pay-cuts on my staff if I did not take a much larger cut myself. I also ceased any pension provisions I had been making. I see no particular virtue in what I or my staff had to do. It was pure pragmatism, as we did what we had to do to keep the company afloat and to retain a salary, however depleted. We reduced the expenditure of the company until it matched the income of the company, as did all other private companies who started to lose money in 2008. Two years on, and even with these pay-cuts the company is in a precarious position but at least we have done everything we can to stay afloat, so far, and to get through this crisis.

The actions taken in this company have been taken in SMEs all over Ireland. This is not being seen in the CSO figures, which are being distorted as they are aggregated with some of the more successful companies in the multinational sector, many of which have not had to endure any pay-cuts.

There is a reality. Some 200,000 people have lost their jobs in the private sector since 2008. The Minister must accept some real proposals. What is this person proposing? He certainly condemns the farcical benchmarking without outcomes. He is also seriously condemnatory of the way this House has brought in rules to make fat cats of Ministers and Deputies. Expenses have been abused in this House by our own colleague, Senator Callely. It has been absolutely appalling.