 As you know, revival and regeneration is our theme for this evening. I wish to focus on three very specific themes of regeneration. Not only urban regeneration, but the regeneration of businesses role within society and the regeneration of trust. The Invest and I clip we've just seen burst testimony to some of the great progress we're making. Yes, there are real pressures on the large number of our businesses, particularly our SMEs, but many of our companies are doing well and growing, and it's right to be positive after the last five years, so to start talking about growth. For example, in Galgorn Balomina, a future design icon has been built by right bus from scratch and sold to the city of London. In the future it will be as familiar as the Black Cab. I actually saw it a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't realise it was possible to be so excited about buses, but it is, and it's a fantastic design. Mark, I know you and your senior management team are here tonight. You should all be congratulated. It's a fantastic achievement. This is the type of progress we are making. However, the fact remains that businesses that are succeeding remain too small a part of our economy. We simply need more of them, and we remain in desperate need of a significant policy lever to achieve this. However, our main focus tonight is on urban regeneration and development. It is time for a resurgence here. Five years ago we paid the price for property being a disproportionate part of our economy. However, the long-term danger of a loan was effectively a five-year market failure to both our wider economy and our society cannot be ignored. Now and more than ever we need regeneration initiatives led by both public and private sectors in partnership that prepare our cities particularly Belfast for the future. Physical transformation is needed to stimulate investment, jobs and growth. So one of the main CBI projects this year is how to develop thriving economies to regeneration. As part of this we'll be engaging with members to identify key regeneration drivers. For example, the need to replace old houses and build new houses and towns and cities. We therefore welcome the announcement by Minister of Causland as the restructuring of the housing executive. We firmly believe that this can deliver better product to our end users but also stimulate our economy and help our local suppliers at the same time. The challenge on this one is now of delivery and can we do that within the time frame set out in the programme for government. In terms of regeneration schemes, I believe that when our executives have taken the plungs they've done so with a lot of success. The Titanic Signature Project has been top drawer. At the recent London Property Awards it beat the Olympic Park to second place overall. We have beaten the Olympics. It's an amazing achievement. As I mentioned earlier it's attracted 800,000 visitors, 250,000 visitors from the Republic of Ireland. Think about that last stat. We're talking about co-operation Ireland, cross-border business and relationships. That is one of the best things that we can achieve. 250,000 visitors from the public. That's a lot of new wallets and a lot of new spend. Yesterday I attended the Maiselom project launch as well. Again this promise is a great deal. In a couple of years time I fully expect my successor Colin Walsh to be standing here commenting on the thousands of jobs created and the inward investment from the companies attracted. These are two great examples of regeneration initiatives. Government, private sector and partnership. But we just need more of them now and we need them more quickly. What else could we do? Things we would be looking at immediately, the York Street interchange, the North South interconnector. The latter must get through planning quickly as it is absolutely vital in terms of our medium to long term electricity needs. The Great Victoria Street Transport Hub. This would provide a much better integrated transport solution for Belfast and a much better commuter experience. Many of you will drive into Belfast every day and I'm sure you'll agree it's sorely needed. Schemes like these assist both in connectivity and competitiveness. They improve both Belfast and Northern Ireland's global offering. More priority must be given to these as they are in Great Britain. Many things the executive need to consider include the following. Do we need an infrastructure minister? Do we need to adapt a model similar to the Scottish Futures Trust? Could SIB play a wider role? Should we widen out local councils' borrowing powers to allow them to invest, to allow them to develop? What areas of Belfast and other towns need urgent attention? I drive few parts of Belfast sometimes and I'm ashamed. Are there some quick and inexpensive initiatives that can help here in the short term? I'll be very interested to hear Eric's views on this point shortly. Yes, we appreciate the executive has had to absorb a significant cut in capital. Initially around 40%, it's now about 22%, but these challenges are with us from now on. What we can't do again is to allow such a capital gap to occur without both our executive finding savings in revenue to put into capital, but secondly, agreeing across all departments and consistently to source much-needed private investment to bridge the gap. We cannot allow such a capital gap to happen again, particularly when we can find the money elsewhere. We've strongly welcomed, therefore, the announcement of the two new health centres to be built using the 3PD private finance model. However, this approach needs to be embraced much more widely and much more quickly. The role of the public sector needs to change from financer to underwriter and facilitator. There has to be much more focus on your generation projects which are private sector-led, underwritten by government, and these will unlock much larger private sector investment. Regeneration at this scale would combine economic, social and physical outcomes for everyone in Northern Ireland, but we must start with Belfast. In the 1950s Belfast had 400,000 people. It now has 280,000. From someone outside of Belfast, I can say this quite easily, we must make Belfast a magnet for people, for business and for tourism. This will benefit the country as a whole. So urban regeneration must be front and centre going forward. Mention of the new health centre funding brings me to my second thing. What has struck me most in my time as chair is that the divide in our society are politicians and to some extent are media, as to the importance of trust in business and the role of complaint society is wide. From a wider UK perspective, the importance is clear. I'm just going to read out some of these stats. 80% of jobs in the UK are provided by business. In the first half of last year, half a million new jobs were created. Business spends £49 billion each year training its people. Critically, 100,000 businesses provided nearly half a million new apprenticeships for young people in 2011. If only we could do a pro-rata amount of that. Business paid £168 billion worth of tax in 2012. This is equal to all UK government spending on health and education combined. Business donations to UK charities, £1.6 billion. The one that really stood out to me was this. The average UK pensioner now receives less than half their income from state pension. Private savings and employer pension schemes are essential for our society's future. If you transpose that into Northern Ireland, can our private sector do that at the moment? No, it can't, but we've got to find a way to make it that it can. The best protection for Northern Ireland society and its prosperity in their retirement are profitable employers able to contribute and deliver pensions. I am afraid in Northern Ireland a lot of the time this message is lost. In more media interviews that I do than not, I have seen the tired old way of business versus union, private versus public. The private sector is seen as something to be wary of. The recent press and some political comment on the two new health centres and how they've been funded is frankly disappointing and depressing. It was as if using private funding to build them is a bad thing. As a country we must get past this. In London, Edinburgh, Dublin and even Cardiff I've been fortunate enough to travel around and go to CBI council meetings there. I can assure you it is like night and day. Even in government there's a natural bias towards smarter, not heavier regulation of business. There is a natural acceptance of the private sector getting involved in the provision and funding of public services. Unfortunately we remain off the pace on both fronts. Some very simple examples. We now lag behind the rest of the UK employment law when we should be in front. We continue to lag behind on energy costs for large manufacturers when again we need to be in front. We are the second highest priced energy supplier to large manufacturers in Europe behind Italy. Our public sector still has a tendency to procure services internally instead of opening them up for competition. Despite 77% of the general public in Northern Ireland in a recent poll we commissioned said they would have no issue with this. To me there is a key message for all our political parties. Better and more successful businesses mean a better quality of life for our society. Only when the needs of successful businesses, large, medium and small are prioritised on a daily basis within government will we be able to get the growth we need. In terms of policy making we are simply not there yet. We have just issued our report on assessing the speed of public sector reform. Yes it is critical but I hope it is seen as constructive criticism. All we ask is that it is given proper consideration as a genuine attempt to assist in maintaining and improving public services in Northern Ireland for the next 20 years. Finally to the regeneration of trust. As you may have seen in the programme for this evening this relates to co-operation tax. Mr John Simpson told me not to talk about co-operation tax so I am going to do precisely that. A large number of our businesses are turning the corner. However just because a large number of the businesses we have are succeeding doesn't mean we have a large number of successful businesses. Over 33% of our employees are in the public sector. It is only 15% in the Republic of Ireland. We need the corporate equivalent of a blood transfusion. As you may have seen in the press the Northern Ireland office and our executive are working on an economic pact which we hope will bring much needed short term stimulus to our economy. As you would expect the CBI or doing whatever we can to help DETI and the executive identify what measures will produce the biggest short term impact. I have used the phrase short term twice and quite deliberately. Be under no illusion and no matter what is said it is unlikely that any of the measures finally agreed will bring transformational change to Northern Ireland. That is why we along with the other members of the business alliance here tonight and Grew and I remain firmly committed to taking the co-operation tax debate to its rightful conclusion in the next 18 months. Before I go any further on co-operation tax it would be very remiss of me not to mention the recent passing of our friend and colleagues at George quickly. George started the co-operation tax debate. I got to know him very well over the last few years and there was rarely a week that passed when I didn't get a letter or email from him encouraging me or suggesting that I consider some line of argument. These suggestions were always 100% spot on and always something that no one else had thought of. George you are very much missed but why do we continue with co-operation tax particularly when some commentators pronounce the campaign over? Well let's look at the facts. Unlike these commentators we met with OFM DFM and the Secretary of State the day after the meeting in Downing Street. We were and remain encouraged by what we heard. The clear message from business to each of them and to all the politicians in this room and beyond is please continue, please stay united. I would also pay tribute to the unseen work that the Secretary of State continues to do. This doesn't hit the headlines but is essential to getting this deal over the line and in this parliament. We need her to continue with this work. There is however a second reason if it comes up on the screen. There's a couple of quotes. First is from the Prime Minister in November last year. You can read it yourself but I'll read out a couple of extracts. I've always seen major reasons and advantages for moving ahead on this particularly regarding the land border. You have with the Republic on the issues there and he ends but I think we are making progress. The next one is from the Secretary of State two days after we met her. I am optimistic. An important step forward was taken this week. We got a pathway to a decision and there's a real possibility of legislating within this parliament. I don't believe our politicians are foolish. I may not always agree with them but I do not think they are foolish. I also don't believe that the CVI or any other business organisation is foolish. But it would be foolish if we collectively allow this campaign to evaporate into the ether. After all this has been said and represented to us by our government. So what is the CVI going to do? How do we take this forward? The answer is actually on your table. You should be able to find a laminated sheet around about where the Candelabra is that shows the first page of the Scottish MOU around devolution of income tax. This memorandum of understanding was agreed in February this year between Westminster and the Scottish Executive. Under this MOU Westminster and the Scottish Executive are now working out in some detail that we can see from the index, the power to set out the rate of income tax in Scotland. It provides a detailed summary of how this is to be done and when. This MOU converts the Scotland Act into reality. For non-parliamentarians like myself, this means that the Scotland Act was brought in and reasonably short notice and only needed the support of the coalition government because it wasn't a finance act. As you can see, a very clear pathway in precedent exists. The similarities are uncanny. We will happily adopt the same approach. Accordingly, we expect a road map to be drawn up over the coming months to ensure that in the event there is a positive decision probably after September of next year that the structures are there to consummate this devolution in this parliament and not the next. A failure to do this will be seen as precisely what it would be, namely that we will get into a position where the government says, yes, we would like to give it to you, but we've run out of time. The next 12 months will be key. Ladies and gentlemen, the CBI will be persistent, consistent and unrelenting on this. We will be the continual tabbing finger, possibly quite annoying sometimes on the shoulder of government. In May, we meet with the Prime Minister in Downing Strait in preparation for the G8 summit as part of a CBI delegation. Our message will be respectful but clear. The Prime Minister has set his stream in subjects for the G8 summit, our transparency, tax and trade. I will be asking him to be transparent about our tax to enable us to trade. Finally, ladies and gentlemen, as a footnote, since our last annual dinner, over 12,000 new jobs have been created in the Republic of Ireland through foreign direct investment. Over 12,000 families have received the benefits of foreign direct investment. Over 12,000 families have been regenerated and revived by the creation of new jobs and a better quality of life. The ADA's target this year for foreign direct investment is another 12,000. The clock is ticking and thank you very much for listening.