Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Leyden's comments as I, too, am a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. We had a very productive two days in London, both at the conference venue and Westminster. Yesterday we had a moving wreath-laying ceremony in Westminster that was led by the two Co-Chairs and that acknowledged all of the people who died in the First World War, or the Great War, as it is also known.

I highlight a report produced by the Nevin Economic Research Institute and outlined this morning. It claims that multinationals hide the weakness in the indigenous economy and that while the average statistics look quite good, it is really the multinationals that are very productive and advanced in terms of efficiencies, thus hiding a lack of productivity in the indigenous sector. The report highlights in particular that the domestic economy is weaker in terms of information and communications, which is somewhat surprising, and real estate activities when compared with European counterparts.

Will the Leader schedule a debate on the topic of our national competitiveness? While we welcome and appreciate the tremendous employment and tax benefits that foreign direct investment, FDI, brings, equally, we must strengthen and protect our indigenous economy. It would be wonderful if we had as many home-grown companies. We have some very successful multinational companies such as Cement Roadstone Holdings, CRH, the Kerry Group, Smurfit and others that have grown out of Ireland. Nonetheless, there are an awful lot of companies in Ireland that are not as productive as I would like them to be and as, I am sure, they would like to be themselves. The Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Humphreys, would be the most appropriate Minister to invite to the House. We could discuss what she and her Department, along with Members of this House and the Lower House, can do to strengthen the indigenous economy, which is always going to be here.I wish for as much foreign direct investment as we can get because it is fantastic. The more FDI we have, the less dependent we are on any individual company. This is, however, an important topic on which I ask the Leader to schedule a debate as soon as possible.