Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I thank the Deputy for her comments and support. I shall work backwards and my colleagues might add some colour and detail.

The productivity gap is very significant and real. There are two factors. One is the exceptional level of productivity that we have in the Irish economy. If people benchmark Ireland against any economy in Europe they will see that we are an outperformer because of what has happened over the past 40 years of investment and the constant evolution, which I have mentioned a few times, of that investment and the nature of what is happening. Recently I met representatives of a company in the west of Ireland, which is a very large employer, and I was struck by them saying to us that there was not a single person in their employment that was doing the same job as they were five years ago.

That is ultimately what productivity and innovation looks like on a tangible basis so the business model continues to change and there are new and better ways of doing things. Ireland is at the frontier. That is part of the explanation, and we know that Northern Ireland has a productivity challenge. So much of that goes back to investment. We are looking at decades of under-investment in all parts of the economy in Northern Ireland, and the challenges in the education system that have been well brought out by some of the work the ESRI, in particular, has done.

The Deputy's comments on remote working are significant and we will look back on this period in 20 or 30 years and see that the advent of remote working probably had a more significant impact on balanced regional development than many decades of other Government policies. It will probably be the single most effective dial turner in terms of opportunities and prosperity for the regions. If we are going to help the regions to grasp the full opportunity, we will go back to investment within the regions. Housing is also such a challenge in every part of the country. This is not a major city issue as the Deputy will be aware, but crucially then it is about is having a much more sophisticated and high-quality transport network. Part of that will still involve roads but a lot of it will involve public transport and supporting a low-carbon transition across the island. Remote working is great but we will still need to have people connected in person and physically to their workplace for fewer days and in a sustainable commuting pattern. The transport infrastructure and public transport is needed to support that so that is the significant build-on.

The ESRI work, interestingly, has been done jointly with its counterpart in London, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, NIESR, and they are able to draw on similar regional economic models that they did in Scotland and Wales for Northern Ireland and then subsequently for the all-island economy. The most significant gap we point to is that we have not been measuring and when we have not been measuring, we have no idea how to quantify the policy challenges or barriers. The first thing for us is to get the measurement in place and then start plugging some of the policy levers that could make a real difference. Maybe colleagues want to come in further on some of those issues.