 Rai, mae'r gynwedd ychwanegu iawn ar y flwyddyn nhw nid, mae'r mhwng yma i wedi'w dweud o'r ll supportedr. Mae'r gynw'n ardod o'r cherdd. Rydw i'r cwmysglu o'r ddechrau i'r peth a dod o'r gynwedd felly i'r bwysig. Rhaid. Rhaid. Gwyl Gwyl David, rhaid. Rhaid, rhaid, rhaid a'u ddefnyddio ei ddefnyddio fel gwahol, ac roedd ni'n gwneud i ddweud i gwaith ar y cynnig. Felly, mae'r cymhdoedd yn gion, mae'r cymhdoedd bwrdd, mae'r cymhdoedd yn bach wedi eu cyfnod, mae'r gwybod, mae'r cymhdoed. A wnaethau'r cyfrydd ym ddigon. Mae'r cyfrifedd yma o'r ddweud, mae'r cwmdick erbyn yn gael er mwynol Segwyr... Mae'r argumentau i'w llwyddiadau yn ymdyn nhw, yn cael ei chael, yn ddod i'r ddweud. Yn yw'r ysgolwyddiad, rydyn ni'n ymdyn nhw. Rydyn ni'n ddod i'r economaeth yn cael ei wais. Ysgolwyddiadau yn ymdyn nhw. Yn ymdyn nhw'n ymdyn nhw'n ymdyn nhw'n ymdyn nhw. and it get people out of jobs and other employment into jobs, like the fact majority of people. Well, it doesn't do and you brought up the method yourself. It doesn't work for a minority group, it doesn't scheme a minority group who are unemployed a'r unrhyw o rynwir o'r gallu'r drwyaf yn gweithio. Rydyn yn mynd yn ei wneud, cael ei mwy yn 80% y dynig, i'r gwneud o'r ddweud. Mae'r gwneud o'r ddweud o'r ddebygu'r gwneud dyma i'n meddwl i'r cyd земol 1%. Mae'r ddweud o'r peth. Fe wnaeth eu llei ddangos, Byddwn i'n gweithio'r cyflwyno o gydaneth i'r cyflwyno a gwahodd o'r gweithiau. Yn ymgyrch yn gwneud y bwysig yn y bwysig? Rwy'n ymgyrch. Yn y lle mae'r globarau, yn y lle mae'r sefydluoedd yn ymgyrch. A'r bwysig oherwydd yn Ysbryd, yn y ffwrdd yr Ysbryd Gweithio'r Llyfrgell, ac yn ymwysig yma, yw'r Ysbryd Llyfrgell. Oni'r Llyfrgell yn ymgyrch. Gwyl yn oeddiad yn y conwcllid ar gyfer cyhoeth o edrych yn gweld y Llywodraeth, a i ddysgu'n oeddu'n gweld y Llywodraeth yn Cymru. Rydym a'r enwaryll Leolau wrth gwrs y cyfgrif storioddau sydd wedi'r cysylltiadau. It ups depths, and all of that is really tough, but it's really hard to get it. So, we need to start thinking about this. My final point is real cock-a-bag globalization. Real cock-a-bag projects, what the EU has grown at, how the EU is bad. It's not perfect, nothing is perfect, because it's 11th. We have the lowest in Europe share of people at work. Now, again, I don't think that's a globalization thing. I don't think it's a European thing. You know, there are other national factors at play. I just find it very hard to see a correlation between globalization countries that are very globalized and countries that have low proportions of their people with disabilities at work. I think it's more again, coming back to so many other things, it's a national issue rather than a global or European issue. I would just say, I would say if you need to get on Irish facts, the Irish national facts, you say look, you have to wait and I can hear that, but it doesn't really mean to your employment. I've changed during the fact that Ireland, out of 10 years, when you ratify your treaty. But again, it's the old story. You know, if your accrats interfere where they don't have a mandate, they get accused of not respecting the democratic process. They haven't been given the powers. We can't say to them, you should intervene when you don't have a mandate. You want us to come in on that and then we'll just open up. Well, on another point, but just on that point, and it is one of the great difficulties that I think progressives all over Europe have, especially when you're talking about the rights that we have that were more in place as a result of the European Union. But nobody can point to a social right that we got through Europe that we couldn't have got through a government because the government had the political will to actually deliver it. And they were agreed by governments at an EU level, probably just the power of numbers. I think that's what you're talking about in terms of, but there are UN treaties. We've signed up to another convention in relation to the rights of people with disabilities. The difficulty has always come in terms of the implementation of them at a national level. But just in terms of the globalization, and I probably didn't make this point well earlier on when I was talking about what it has meant because I think we're beyond the debate as to whether globalization is good or bad because globalization is a reality. What we need to talk about is how do we respond to the obvious disadvantages and problems that globalization has created? OK, so we can have an argument about whether the outweigh or are overmatched by the positives but there have been negatives. And one of the negatives has undoubtedly been the disconnect from citizens from the political process. Lots of people believe that they don't actually have a say in terms of how they address their concerns. And sometimes opportunity presents themselves where people can just give two fingers to the political system whether it be through Brexit or through Trump or through the far right. And the difficulty I have with the European Union in large is that they haven't been taking those messages because they are messages from people who, and the European Union has actually got quite a number of them. I mentioned the constitution in France and Germany. When they rejected the European constitution, European leaders came back into a room. And they could have done one of two things in my view. They could have said, OK, what were the reasons why the people of France and Netherlands voted against this and how can we address those concerns? Or they could have done what they did do, which was how do we get this thing through without actually having anybody to vote on it again? Which was what their priority was. And they came up with the Lisbon Treaty, which was a convoluted set of amendments. But in essence the same thing. That was the message. They got the message again then in numerous times in terms of election results and in terms of political symbol, the Greek people responding to the fiscal compact. Brexit again has been another whatever you like. And we don't obviously like that result, but it was a message to Europe. And the answer of European leaders has largely always been, let's do what we always intended to do anyway, only do it quicker. And I call it the Las Vegas political philosophy. Just double up every time that you get a message that says, we don't like where you're going, where we're going even harder. And the problem is that that creates more disillusion. And to such a point that I was in the European Parliament last year and there were MEPs almost dancing in the chamber with the victory that was the fact that only 35%, only 35% of French people voted for an actual fascist. That's how crazy our political systems have become and the sense of disillusion that we actually consider that to be. And then when you actually look at what Macron is doing in terms of labour reforms, so-called labour reforms and everything else, you wonder, is he actually creating the scenario and the foundation block to actually making sure that a fascist is actually elected. I'll let Michael come back in on that, but just in the meantime, we're just hands up for someone else who'd like to do something with the microphone. Actually, these days here, at the very front table here with the tracks here, give the microphone to them. Just in the meantime, Michael, you want to... Can I just make a point? Again, it's very simplistic, I think, to say, well, it's Europe has lurched to the right or to the left. That isn't the case. So if you heard Pascal Dunno make the point a long time ago, like 12 months ago, he said the centre must hold. And the centre has held. Yeah, there was a vote in the UK from Brexit that was two years ago. But since then, about 65% of the population of Europe have gone to national elections. And in the main, they've held. There have been some results where you have coalitions like what's happening in Italy, where your party on the far right who are now in government. But let's see how they get on. And the centre has held quite well better than anybody anticipated. So subsequent to Brexit, we then had the American election result, which was a surprise also. But in the main, the centre has held and held well. Girls here at the front table, what's your name and what would you like to say to the panel? My name's Neave and I just want to acknowledge Man's comment with the government's tackling of the current health crisis. This government also oversawd that apple tax can, in which they refuse for ages to accept the old 13 billion in tax, which could have been much needed investment into our public services. For example, our health service, which is in need of investment of better services. But like corporations, they do serve a purpose. That's fine. But running after them and doing dirty deals with them, that doesn't represent the ordinary citizen. It doesn't represent the ordinary taxpayer. And what it does is it assists those who are playing the tax system and that's being facilitated at the minute widespread. As a young person, what do you think about globalisation? Do you think that it makes you more optimistic about the future? Does it give you a little bit of fear or what do you think about? I'm excited. Upside and downside. Can I ask a question? Are you a member of the party? I am, yes. Which party? It's good to see the next generation are involved in the tax and spend. In relation to the acts. No, I'm sorry. She just says pay your taxes rather than tax and spend. I'm quite happy to call it as it is. I listen to it every day in the Dall Chamber when we're in there just in the last month from opposition parties. Can I just say this? Michael's Government has spent 450 million euro now, let's say. Just let me finish, please. What I can say about it is the tax and spend. In the last month there was a requirement, an ask from opposition parties, costing an extra 400 million. The last decade has been too hard. It's been too tough on too many people for us to go back and do that again. I can assure you T-Shop won't do it, and the Minister for Finance won't do it. We will not create an unsustainable tax position because we want to keep spending to be populist. Let's try and keep the discussion to European and global. Anyone else with a hand up who would like to make a question? This gentleman here in the front row. What's your name? My name is Ciaran Rogers, I want to fill out it. No, I just wanted to say one of the huge dynamics in history has been migrations of people, be it through the fall of the Roman Empire or Muslim conquests or whatever. And certainly in my opinion as regards Brexit, the voter Brexit, fear is always a huge motivator as regards people voting. And certainly the Brexit campaign has really tapped into this visceral fear that many UK citizens had about an influx of foreigners. And to some extent although the centre has held reasonably well, I think much of the tension is because people feel a sense of maybe culture dilution, that globalization itself involves not just a freer movement of goods, but a freer movement of peoples. And I think many people feel a genuine fear or we seem to be overwhelmed by Syrians or Africans or whatever. So I just wanted to ask the panel in general how do you feel about the EU's immigration policies and its contribution towards the perception of the threat of immigration? I know that you both do one community of that, but we haven't heard very much from this end of the panel on that. So Marie, do you want to start on that and what do you think about the role and the people fear globalization because it makes them feel that their national identities and cultures are under threat? Of course. Well, the thing is, if somebody is unemployed or if they are not eating out a decent standard of living, then somebody coming into town and taking up employment, of course people are going to fear that. So in some ways it's cultural and it's economic. And I think you're right. I absolutely agree with you with regards to the factors that accounted for the Brexit vote. So that's why in some ways it's so important to make sure that people are adequately skilled and that also I suppose a separate point to make is that with regards to Ireland, we've actually had very few numbers of migrants coming. So I think I'm not sure of the exact numbers of our commitments, but certainly with regards to Syrian refugees coming to Ireland, they're a lot lower than what we actually committed to. So in some ways I don't think we've been exposed to the same extent. We've had a lot of inter-EU migration into Ireland with regards to those from Central and Eastern Europe and I suppose 30% of employment growth over the past four years in this country has been by workers from Central and Eastern Europe and beyond those borders. But I suppose in terms of the migration outside of Europe into Ireland, we have not had that to the same extent as other countries. Dan, what are your thoughts on that? I think you pick up a very important point because I spend most of my life as an economic migrant in other countries. I live in Dublin age, the most diverse part of the country. I'm a globalist type of person. I don't have an issue, but that doesn't make me a better person than somebody who is uncomfortable with an increasingly diverse society. This notion that diversity is morally better, I think we need to be careful about that because you end up talking down to people who are just more comfortable with the familiar and they want to be able to talk about the local GA game with their neighbour and they feel that increased diversity means they may not be able to do that. Now, I think we just need to be very careful about talking down to people like that, people of my view, of just dismissing them as racists and bigots. I think too much of that has gone on. I think it still goes on in this country about Britain and Brexit. I think there's a lot of stuff going on in the Brexit thing about British history, about British character. It can't all be dismissed as a bunch of bigots and racists and I think a lot of Irish people have done that about the Brexit vote. We just need to listen to people's concerns and if people feel that migration is maybe running too far, then governments may have to say, okay, well, let's just slow things down. That is not a morally bad position to take and if governments don't listen to discomfort about levels of migration, I think then you risk getting into the sort of territory that we've moved towards in Europe lately. I think just we need, those of us who are of my persuasion need to be a little bit more respectful and listen more to people who are uncomfortable with that change. Michael, can you ever see the EU take that kind of direction where the EU has been so built around freedom of movement that it could get to a point where it might actually say this perhaps needs to be slowed down. Are you talking about migration into the EU? Into or within? I don't see the EU moving in any way from within. Ireland is a great example of a good result in terms of migration. So, if you take a lot of senses, one person in six wasn't born in Ireland. And I take Dan's point and I think it's important to partly where the EU, I'm critical of the EU, to tend not to listen as well as they should. Dan's point about listening to people who have an alternative view, you don't have to agree with it, but we should listen and I think that's kind of what Dan is saying. We haven't been good enough to listen but we've done it much better than just about any other jurisdiction. So, if you take one in six, that's a higher rate than nearly everywhere else in terms of people not having been born here. And we've integrated very well. Whereas I think in other jurisdictions, there's been the ghettoisation of people either from within the EU or from the same countries. So, you have towns in other jurisdictions that have people from different countries. And the people from that town aren't pleased. And you had a lot of that in Northern England in the Brexit vote. Matt, very briefly, will we try and get another question? Your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think what we have seen happen is that you're dealing with communities who are disillusioned, angry, frustrated. In many respects, they're not exactly sure as to who it is that they need to blame. These are people who lost their jobs as a result of globalisation, are working harder than their parents did. There are two incomes coming into the house if they're lucky. And yet, their parents had their mortgage paid off, had the car, bought, were able to take a family holiday every year. And they're working twice as hard. There's two people doing it instead of one. They have smaller families. All the things that should point to a better quality of life. And yet they find it even tougher on the generation that went before them. And what we've seen is a very clever mechanism that in some cases was caused by government's actions and where people have been scapegoated. So those people who are frustrated because of all of those things have been told that the person that is responsible for that is the person that looks different from them and the person who sounds different from them and the person who comes from them. And the European Union isn't this great entity that comes to migration. Yes, internal freedom of movement is a cornerstone of the EU, rightly so in my view. But the European Union at the moment actually has a very poor record, I would argue, in terms of dealing with the migration crisis. It is expecting. I saw, for example, going back to my old friend McCrame yesterday, hitting out at the Italian government now. The Italian government's position in relation to the Aquarius ship is scandalous and should be considered such as Irish people with their own history of puffinships and everything else like that. But the French government have actually been driving back in their thousands migrants who are in Italy trying to make their way to France have been bolting the door and sending the back using the Dublin regulations. So, listen, there's lots of causes for migration. In most cases, most of the migrants that we have in Ireland, the people who Michael are talking about, are people from other parts of Europe who come over to work. In many cases they've been enticed to come over by companies so that they can be paid less than Irish workers would be entitled to. The other migrants are coming from places that they would prefer to be living in. The reason they're leaving them is because they're war-torn, largely because of wars that European countries were engaged in. And they have suffered as a result of decisions. And I just think, whether it's politically expedient or not, I just think, especially coming from Ireland, was born in England. I sometimes am reluctant to admit, but I think every one of our families has experience of migration when you talk about the family. If it wasn't for emigration and the prospect of Irish people being able, we wouldn't exist as a people at all. So I just think we have a moral obligation to say if somebody's coming from a place like Syria or Iraq or places that have been devastated, then I think we just have a responsibility to find them a whole agenda. The very back of the room there. Thank you. I guess for me, the issue of localisation is the challenge of the nation state. It doesn't have enough power. I don't see a match to touch and view the nation state. And if we're about cruel sovereignty, how do we ensure that Europe becomes back to the vision it had of 30, 40 years ago? How do we make Europe much more democratic? How do we empower and engage Europe? I think it is about respect. And figuring out how we can respect the decisions that people democratically send us. I'm not just dismiss those decisions that we don't like. I'm often conflicted because I do support those EU directives that provide rights to the citizens and protect them. I'm not just dismiss those decisions that we don't like. I'm often conflicted because I do support those EU directives that provide rights to the citizens and protect citizens, particularly workers, women and people with disabilities in some instances. Absolutely. And there are some things that can only be dealt with at a European level. You can't deal with climate change as an island of Ireland. We have to deal with it at a European level. There are some issues with vis-a-vis globalisation tax avoidance. I will argue to the idea that the right of national parliament to set its own taxation powers, but at the same time, if we want to have tax justice globally, then there has to be an EU and a global response in terms of transparency matters and country by country reporting and things like that. So then things have to have... The problem and where I get conflicted is the best thing about politics, the way we get people like meaf to join a political party, which I think young people should be commended by the way. But the way we get them engaged is by convincing them that if anybody in government, whether it's a Sinn Fein government or a Ffina Gail government or a Ffina Ffaill government, if you don't like what they do, that's the beauty of democracy. You can kick them out. The big problem at the European Union level is if something is put in place, good, bad or indifferent, and citizens decide that they don't like that, not only do they have to kick out their government to hope that 26 or 27 other countries do the same because that's what it takes and that's where I have a problem in terms of the democratic framework of an EU. Yes, if there was better transparency and an overview and people were engaged in the decisions that were made at an EU level, yes there is a level. You could argue that it's a democratic framework at that level. The problem is part of democracy means you can also change laws if you don't like them and that's very difficult at the European Union level. And we're doing it. My big problem, and I suppose this isn't, is that we are all collectively, it's not the biggest power, the biggest problem isn't that the EU has too much power although in some areas it does. The biggest problem is that corporations have too much power. We're going back to the areas of the apples and the Facebooks and the Amazons and they have more power than some member states of the European Union and unless we collectively tackle that, well then that's where I really fear that the effect of globalisation on the market. So I've been involved in the European Union in some capacity for about 20 years and if I had a euro for every time somebody asked your question, how do you make Europe closer to the people? I'd have about 13 billion at this stage. I don't think there is an answer to it because I think, as I said, the kind of thing the EU does, it doesn't do the stuff to help the education, the stuff that people pay most attention to in politics. It doesn't have the human drama that you have in national politics. Ever listen to a debate of MEPs, most of it is through simultaneous translation which I would send even if politics didn't go back to sleep. So I think the nature of what it does and just that kind of lack of human drama means that it's never really going to engage people. And as I say, I've heard that question but so many times and I still haven't heard a good answer to that and I'm not sure there is one. Ray, do you have a good answer? No, but I suppose I do think though that and I suppose Matt touched on it like it is the objectives of the European Union in terms of what the project, the EU project wants to achieve and certainly issues like climate change, Ireland and so on can achieve very, very little. Certainly with regards to migration as well and again where she is is because we're so much further north compared with the southern Mediterranean countries. But there are transnational issues that the EU can I suppose adopt and be ambitious on and bring its people along with it. But I think because I suppose we have so many layers and Ireland probably does better than other countries with regards to an awareness of the council and the commission and the parliament and the powers between them all but I think ultimately the structure lends itself to that sense of being able to remove and people not being able to understand how power functions. Do you think that we need to be reminded sometimes or maybe the EU needs to be reminded of what its mission is that maybe it's not really sure what its role is in its life that maybe it goes too far sometimes? Well that the mission evolves. So if you go back to after World War II and the establishment of the big cursor to the European Union the mission really was to stop not so much your Britain, France and Germany going to war every couple of decades. So the period that we have today 75 years almost later is the first period of 75 years that those three countries haven't gone and ravaged one another at some stage. And what it's also evolved now into so going back where it started then it wanted to feed itself so the common eye culture policy was hugely important going back to ensure that Europe would be fed. The idea in today's coming to the end of the second decade of this century that this continent just a couple of decades prior to that may not be able to feed itself is just alien to so many young people but it's evolving the mission is evolving as well. And I think one of the things my criticism about democracy in Europe is of the parliament that I shared a stage with William Hay during the week and I made the point that the UKIP party found themselves in a position that they were able to get on the political stage by winning seats in a European election where there was less than 20% turnout. So the European Parliament elections on so many occasions the turnout is really, really poor. Average of 35%. So there's a lot more people who choose not to participate in that way and then perhaps they should. And that's a great pity because if you take the referendum last week almost 70% most general elections here range between 65% and 70% but the Tory party in the UK got spooked because the UKIP won a nice number of seats on a turnout of between 20% 25% which is remarkable and that's what happened and that's how Brexit came about. Does raise the whole question again of the demographic deficit and we could have a whole other event. The deficit on that stage was in the voters that chose not to participate. We have time for a couple more questions but I'm just mindful that I've only had one female contributor so far being over here at the White House. Your name and if you have any affiliations Andrew Bestion, please. Heverly empowering change and the main affiliation is right to home so don't even get me started on what we might have done if we had taxed the profits of the culture funds. I think that what we've missed is as a national government what can we do to mitigate the issues around globalization and my understanding is a new touch on productivity of the main drivers of increased productivity at the beginning of the 2000s was women entering the job market in greater and greater numbers and that has actually leveled off and one of the things that national government could do for instance is better childcare. Ireland has the highest childcare costs in the certainly in Northern Europe in Europe, the only country in the OECD with higher childcare costs is the US. So again if we're looking at what the things are that we can do in Ireland as a national government to mitigate the impact of globalization let's increase productivity and let's do it on the back of better policy around childcare. The other piece with the distribution of wealth I think that we have to start to look at very radical approaches whether it's universal basic income or better social safety nets the kinds of things that will make people nervous about migration that make people have less of a knee jerk reaction and let's talk about some of the things that we could be doing here. We're a very passive lot and oh no we can't change that the EU says no and yet we'll duck and dive and get around every other regulation on the planet but oh no the EU said no so I guess I would like to hear more from each of you about what Ireland at a national level can do to mitigate the impact of globalization. I'm going to try a novel experiment and I'm going to try and give each of the four of you 45 seconds to answer that question well look at your thoughts and I'm going to start with Marie you have 45 seconds starting from now. Okay well firstly I very much share your sentiment on childcare certainly I think it's when you look at how little Ireland has done in the childcare space compared with other EU countries over the past and over the years that certainly you know but it's a role for national funding just in terms of I suppose that level the mobile migration of capital and I suppose touching on the big ratio of globalization at the moment I think as a country we don't fully understand even the levels of of capital coming in and out and indeed then if we don't understand then I think it's hard for us to even identify how we can begin to more equitably distribute between labour and capital in this country but we do know that there has been a greater shift towards capital in terms of the gains from output in this country compared with the gains going towards labour and that has to be remedied by our tax system in particular but also I think in terms of the rules regarding corporates in this country in particular the growing number of companies that are now able to become unlimited companies and it's a very small domestic example but I think there's an issue when even understanding what is happening with regards to mobile capital flows in these countries You'll notice that actually went for a better minute I know, I've heard the most I don't realise that 45 seconds is actually a really really short time I'll give each of you 45 seconds twice Dan, your minute and a half starts now I think Ireland has done very well out of globalisation I don't think we need to talk about mitigation I think we need to talk about taking advantage of it and one of the parts of that is to talk less about all these terrible things that come with it and talk more about the opportunities there and let people think about it in a more positive way how they can start businesses, do international business do more for themselves and empower people to take opportunities from it That was only 28 seconds Let's back that up for later on Michael Darcy, your minute and a half starts now For me the biggest issue in terms of globalisation is if when industries evolve and when jobs are lost I would get people back educated and back re-skilled and get people back to work A great example I have was a guy who was unemployed as a chef at Limerick for two and a half years He started a work with a funds administration company in the tech side He had no knowledge about technology whatsoever He turned out to be a natural coder He participated in an international competition He won 100,000 euros in that competition So there are so many examples of so many people who might start off as a brickie or a chef or a driver in a van but there are so many natural skill sets and abilities that get left behind because they may not have come to college or they may not have started in that space but that we need to have a fleet of foot in terms of getting people back into the workspace I started off talking about the letter factory in town that I know best where people were unemployed when they lost their one job That can't happen You guys are very efficient when I give you time Matt Cartey Never spoken of it OK, I'm going to try a new... 3, 2, 3 OK, just to say something that for a long period of time became the most unpopular notion in politics in Ireland and across many parts of town and that's the idea of state intervention and I think we need to go back to the basis that there are some public services that are so important that the state needs to provide them childcare is a good example so we basically left childcare to the private sector and it actually took the community sector to intervene and start providing services around the place so in some instances we've seen it in housing in health in the provision of broadband across the board services that we've allowed the private sector to basically came over and then we've subsidised those private companies delivering them millions of euros of our money so the state should actually get back to providing those services that are so important because the alternative is that the private systems in place will be the best you can get if you can afford them and if you happen to be living in the place where they're there but they'll actually broaden inequalities and then the second part of it is that those individuals and companies that benefit from that investment in public services actually start paying their fair share of tax so that we can be reinvesting it again it was a time where that wasn't a radical thing to say but to suggest that actually government should actually provide services and that people who may do well out of those services pay a fair share of tax, they've become radical notions I think we should go back to them That was only minute 26 as well That's a record for me This gentleman here at the front has had his hand up very politely all even so it's about time we gave him a chance to have a say Microphone is right behind you sir Your name, any affiliations you have and the point you'd like to make please The only affiliation would be to the town of Dundorg itself Globalisation has had many serious downsides Intel which is one of the most famous companies to come into Ireland had to move out of a manufacturing base in America when the environmental impact of the company became apparent it's now gone to Vietnam where those environmental problems are being played out amongst the people who work for the firm The other thing about globalisation is that we have an artificially high standard of living which has come about from cheap imports If I can go on to eBay and buy a small transistor for £2 and it can be posted to me from China and they make a profit something's wrong somewhere We have a situation where Intel, the head of Intel two years ago said there were five reasons why they came to Ireland and there's only one reason left and that is the taxation system If that taxation system has to be changed as a result of Trump's actions we are in a serious situation we have depended too much on foreign investment and we have lost an awful lot of jobs and going back to a point that you made we say we have more people employed in this country than ever before but those jobs are very purely paid and you made a point where two households two pays are going into a household and still they don't have the standard of living that their parents have so we have a distorted economy where the wealth is concentrated on a very small percentage of people David Dimbleby made a series on the BBC called How We Built Britain and in the final scene of that series he's standing in Canary Wharf at Night where the background is all the office blocks lit lit up and he said in the past the power lay with the church then the power moved to the politicians and with a sweeping wave of his arm he said this is where the power now lies so you gentlemen up there when you are involved in politics may think you are having an impact or an influence or you may think you are doing something but you are dependent upon the influence and the control of major corporations major investment funds when you have the top 1% of people control about 85% of the wealth of the world you have a problem thank you for your time Just because you mentioned both Matt and Diana I'm going to give each of you and stop what really works for you so I'm going to give each of you 60 seconds and then the gentleman back there and Matt 60 seconds to respond to what Michael said Michael is there inequality it's a buzzword but it's actually the root cause of an awful lot of the problems we see in the world and if we can tackle inequality either at national, European or global level I think we can actually start addressing the concerns that you have raised the problem in terms of one of the issues of globalization is we are never going to get back to the level of manufacturing previously in place in a lot of countries and even if you were you're never going to get back to the levels of people who are employed in manufacturing in western countries because of the robots and computers doing the job now so we need to figure out the alternative ways of doing it and we need to be open minded someone mentioned the basic income idea it's one I'm not convinced on but I think we need to have ideas like that because we need to figure out how we can actually get back to society I have to say 95% of what you said I just fundamentally disagree with and I just think you're wrong in a number of things to say that we're not as rich as our parents I would ask most people here would I think they are better off than we were 30 years ago I grew up in the 80s I just think this country is much better now than it was when my parents were my age I am one salary of nose 2 but are do people really believe that we're poorer today than we were in the 80s when it comes to housing that's when it breaks down housing prices have gone up but are we overall saying that we are now less well off than we were in the 80s I just I often make a point on these things of course there are many things wrong but there's not to deny that but the point that we're poorer than we were in the 1980s we spend millions of taxpayers money every year step down please we spend millions that's a very important point but I'm taking the point are we poorer on average than we were 30 than our parents were hands up how many people in the room think that the current generation is lesser off than the one from 30 years previous the current generation is worse off than the one that came ahead of it hands up how many people think that the current generation is worse off than its parents that was what you asked the person and how many people think that the current generation is better off than its parents two hands up here Bray you wanted to comment on that question just two things there I think certainly when you look at incomes the market what people earn is better now than what our parents certainly earned or certainly my parents earned in the 70s and 80s but is the cost of living and in particular housing my parents were able to build their house for 11,000 pounds and pay off with a local authority loan over a period of 30 years now the number of local authority loans that became available during the 90s and the 2000s do anything to nothing so people of course were put into the arms of banks and in some ways credit was able to fund people's lifestyles so in terms of there is a share of my generation now who are worse off because of housing costs because of childcare costs for such a wealthier society why is have we got the worst homeless problem we've ever had in this country I don't ask this man here because if you see a real wealthier than you've ever been why do we have the worst homeless problem but can I just answer that because of decisions made by successive governments in the 90s and the 2000s to stop building social housing in this country is there any indication that comes to great I'm not disagreeing with you but can I just it's been touched on a number of times today which is with regards to our tax system and somebody who's mentioned Apple and whatever else I think there is a real debate that needs to take place in this country with regards to our corporation tax rate and for years it was the we cannot have that debate because companies are going to leave as somebody who works for a trade union who's got a lot of members in those multinational companies so we're concerned as well about the debate but I think it needs to happen because there was a report that came out yesterday I haven't read it in full yet I think it was the public accounts committee and I talked about the top 100 companies in this country 70% of corporate tax revenues now if there's any lesson from the 2000s it's not being overly dependent on any one part of the earth's economy to fund our public services and we saw the over dependence on construction and to a lesser extent retail in the 2000s and now we're seeing a different type of dependence and corporate taxation I think is the second or third largest tax head amongst tax revenues in this country so one of the things I think we need to talk about is our corporate tax rate I'm not in favour of a significant increase in our corporate tax rate but I think what is not being spoken about is an effective rate of corporate tax we have it for income tax for personal income tax in this country we don't have it for corporates Can I just answer the question to the gentleman about that? I will let you address the gentleman's question and then we will come to the gentleman Michael about corporation tax I think it's really important to understand that the companies who come here from outside of the jurisdiction come here for certainty the corporation tax in Ireland is 12.5% it's been that for decades the effective rate that you speak about we get a lot of criticism from our competitors about the headline rate 12.5% most of the jurisdiction's headline rate is much higher than that they're effective rate most of them pay less than what ours is the report from PAC yesterday said it's 8 the effective rate is between somewhere between 8 and 10.5% we have practically no deductions the main deduction that we have is research and development which is absolutely legitimate for companies who choose to come and establish here where we find ourselves in the corporation tax rate the challenge is not spending it and that's a big challenge so what happened in the past three verses of politics if I have it I spend it the challenge we have now is that while it's coming in and it's increased an incredible amount put in 3.9 billion three and a half years ago to 8.2 billion so in 2017 and we expect that figure to go over 9 billion in this calendar year so the challenge to the body politic is to be careful and not to be reckless just because we know it's in this year because it might not come in in subsequent years and that's a big challenge because there's enormous pressure on the purple finance and everybody from the body politic to keep spending and I've said it earlier the last decade was too hard to go back and do all of that again I know Matt that you do want to come back on that but we're already over time as it is and they've committed to letting Dan the gentleman at the back as well do you want to just summarise again Dan to respond to and then we'll let him do it If you're going to say that globalisation is good for Irish society if you're going to say that globalisation is good for Irish society how is this right you talk about all the extra wealth that's in the country that we are sitting upon right one of the worst homeless crisis that this country has ever seen since records began we also have a complete defunct health service that can cope with any more people coming into the country and relying upon an already over burdened health service if globalisation is so good how is it that we have all the migrants that even come into this country end up in so many occasions in more vulnerable positions where they have landlords that don't even afford them basic human rights in the accommodation that they afford to them so with all this extra wealth that's in the country why is it not being redistributed in a fair and proportionate way into the redistribution that's a much bigger question but why do we have homelessness 10 years ago the building industry collapsed it stopped building houses the population has increased by 400,000 could I just finish the point could I just finish the point please sir okay I'm just simply trying to answer your question could you just let me do the building industry collapsed no houses or very few houses were built over 10 years the population rose by 400,000 100,000 it wasn't globalisation that collapsed the building industry let me finish this answer sir please it wasn't globalisation that collapsed the building industry we screwed up that ourselves here in this country that allowed that to collapse it is not about globalisation it is because we messed up this gentleman here at the back has been waiting very very delighted for a long time thank you for being so patient sir your name, affiliations and questions Mark, morning I'm a Phinegal member how much of a fear surrounding EU and globalisation do the tribute to nostalgia you were chatting with somebody there recently a lady in her 70s and her self and her friend were having a coffee with me and the one said the good old days and they retort wise what was good about them there was damp running down the insides of the walls we had to go to the well for water we're in a far better place now so I'd just like to ask do you feel that nostalgia is down to nostalgia yes we are already running very well over time so we will try and keep it again 2 minute and a half and we will start with Matt please no I don't think so actually I think people by and large in Ireland support our membership of the EU for example the support are 12.5% tax rate for all it's I think what they have a problem with is actually some of the direction so I think the biggest problem people have in Ireland isn't the rate that people are paying it's the people who aren't paying at all or who are using Ireland as a mechanism for avoidance tax a lot of the increase in receipts and corporation tax haven't actually been as a result of increase in economic activity they've been as a result of profit shifting of multinational companies it's actually true let me just say this every I've been a member of a special inquiry committee on tax avoidance tax evasion and money laundering by corporations in the European Parliament every single every not some every single report that has been presented to our committee has earmarked Ireland as a location of facilitating of tax avoidance and from that level to some that have gone as far as the report yesterday co-ordered by Gabriel Zuckman that called Ireland not at tax haven but the worst tax haven now the difficulty with tax havens because Michael and the Department of Finance and everybody will come down very strongly I was talking tax haven status it's like early rising and good kissing it doesn't really matter what you think it's really important what your reputation is and the problem is that we actually have a reputation of facilitating mass tax avoidance and the point in this is that rather than actually endorsing and supporting our foreign direct investment we're actually putting it under threat because companies are becoming under increasing pressure from their customers and their shareholders not to be associated in any way with the whole notion of tax avoidance because people are recognising the damage that's causing the development world and to society in a whole and if we don't actually get our act together well then we're actually going to ensure that we don't receive foreign direct investment coming into our country you were doing so well with the stopwatch it was a really important part for which reason then I'll give Michael two and a half minutes to respond to both the nostalgic point and the tax better I think the tax haven is a country that has a pacerate of zero tax ours is 12.5% it's been 12.5% for decades and I don't think to be any movement upon it and the Irish tax rate but they don't complain when there were other jurisdictions that had lower rates than ours because they're not successful we have a lot of reasons for being successful the tax rate and the tax certainty here is one of them in terms of nostalgia the room was a bit shocked about are we better off than we were 30 years ago we are infinitely better off than we were 30 years ago there's no question about that I don't know how many of you remember the Black Gardens that was the answer to homelessness and the likes of that in the past and the population in the 1980s were so much better off than the population in the 1950s that this gentleman was talking about also the era of overcrowded housing and 6-8 people in one house 10 people banged into one house that year is over now we have challenges we said something about the health service the health service isn't all wrong there are challenges but there's quite a few people who enter the health service and get a good service it's not all right but people shouldn't be saying that equally it's all wrong because it's not he kept it within a minute and a half which is impressive when you consider what time of the evening it is Dan on that point about nostalgia and then Maria then we'll have to wrap it up after that I'm not going to consider the nostalgia thing I'm an economist I work with the evidence and every shred of evidence says we're better off, we live longer we have more incomes pretty much every set of data that goes back to the 80s says that now if other people have other information or data that I haven't seen that's fine let's talk about it but if we want it we can either live in a fact world or we can live in a post fact world and I prefer to live in a fact world and I think to finish off well I suppose the facts are that like is in we have thousands of families who are dependent on the state for a temporary housing payment or homeless at the moment so it is a very real issue but just in terms of I suppose you know again I tend to look at at the facts and the evidence but I'm also very conscious that sometimes the data will not tell us everything right and certainly I think that is something an issue, certainly an issue with regards to quality of work at the moment because anybody in the construction industry will tell you that the quality of work 10 years ago or 20 years ago was far better than what it is now because most people are not directly employed in construction but just kind of there's a number of points I just want to make but just I think we have made progress in society but we've also retreated and the one area that I'm thinking about is education so I started college in the early 2000s and I was able to do that with the benefit of free education brought in by the Labour Party in 1997 and that was a huge benefit to a whole generation of people who previously would not have been able to go to college and I was able to go to Dublin because I was able to avail of those free fees the cohort of people now who are going into college are facing very significant registration fees which by any other name is a fee it's not called a fee but it is a fee also brought in by the Labour Party well now it was there before that it was much higher and the point is that we have a funding gap of about 2 billion in education at the moment and complete in action as to how we're going to properly fund the education system so I suppose to just sum up the progress over all to retreating in certain areas in education and housing and in details to a certain extent are the three years that I'm thinking of 10 seconds we're spending more on education in 2018 than we've ever done before 10 million euros and the President of any of the universities would say that they are having to deal with the latter to cope with increasing numbers of students into third level and much less money coming into thousands we also provide 50% of the students and to attend education I think Barry Andrews has found the topic for his next seminar we'll be at the end of it that was the last two folks we're going to have to leave it there we're only a little bit over time sorry to those of you who I know had your hands up David in the amount of people we can accommodate please to show a round of appreciation from Rhysi Arlawd