141. Deputy James O'Connor asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance if he is considering new taxation measures to strengthen Ireland's competitiveness to support the growth of the indigenous sector and encourage retail investment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39878/26]

Sentiment score: 0.29

Will the Government consider any new measures in the forthcoming budget to support the growth of the indigenous sectors in Ireland and to encourage more retail investment? I do not need to tell the Tánaiste the importance of small and medium-sized companies in this country. When we see the enormous exposure Ireland has regarding our corporation tax receipts, although it is a huge benefit to the economy, there is also a risk if we ignore Irish businesses and do not do enough to support them, foster them and help more businesses to grow, expand and be founded in our country. Does the Tánaiste have anything to say?

Sentiment score: 0.50

I thank the Tánaiste and appreciate his response. Yesterday, we saw some very important information come from the International Monetary Fund that effectively warned Ireland about a level of exposure our economy has when it comes to bloated expenditure and wastage of public money and the risks in our economy, such as the advances in artificial intelligence. They are things the Government cannot afford to ignore. I fear that we are not quite at 2008 levels yet, but we are back in 2005, 2006 and 2007, when the Celtic tiger reached its peak and it all came to a miserable end. I wanted to say that on the record of this House and I hope I am proved wrong in four or five years' time. We need to ensure that indigenous businesses, our SMEs and our entrepreneurs are supported, that our economy gives them the best possible chance of success and that we are able to derisk Ireland from what the IMF has stated is a particular concern. We know that multinational companies are moving five times faster than the SME sector when it comes to the application of artificial intelligence. We have a bloated number of employees in Ireland working in multinationals. The risk is clear and obvious. It is a serious risk to the State.

Sentiment score: 0.20

I appreciate the Tánaiste's response. Undoubtedly, the agencies he mentioned, including the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, have done great work. As Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, I commend them on the huge body of work they have done over many decades. Beyond politics and beyond what happens in this House, they are working diligently on behalf of the State across the world and that has to be commended. We have to come to terms with the fact that AI will change the world. It will change how people work. It will reduce the number of people in our workforce and we know that. We see it happening. We saw it with Meta recently and other companies that are starting to downsize their workforce. Informally, some governments are already talking about a future, amazing to say it, without the income from PAYE workers. That is the level of change. If we look at the pioneering companies in respect of this, such as Anthropic and others, they have discussed the possibility that from 40% to 60% of the current workforce in the United States of America could be finding themselves in some way redundant over the next ten to 15 years. We need to take this seriously and look at the key risks to the economy in Ireland.

Sentiment score: 0.23