Mr. Frank Ryan:

I will deal with the questions in general terms and then deal specifically with some of the issues raised and to aid and abet them in that I will call on Mr. Barry O'Leary to set out some of the detail. The key objective for the IDA in 2014 is to continue to win foreign direct investment, FDI, against increasing global competition. One of the challenges is to dispel the myth that exists around foreign direct investment that it was competitive to be attracted to Ireland perhaps 20 years ago, as opposed to the investment we will see over the next 20 years. We are between stools in our interpretation in Ireland today in regard to where modern FDI sits. Global competition is intensifying. Many moons ago when I set out with the IDA, it was a first-mover in this area and had the benefits associated with that. Now every state in the United States has a development agency, never mind the international competition that is there for investment. Seeking FDI has become an industry almost in its own right. The agency next year will finish its final year of its current Horizon 2020 strategy. This opens the opportunity to set out a new strategy and new vision for FDI for the period 2015 to 2019 and it is one on which I look forward to working with the board, the Government, the Dáil and particularly the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

There are a number of key issues that we probably need to address in an open manner. The first one is the regional location of foreign direct investment within the State and what type of FDI we can realistically attract to regional locations. If I have a vision for Ireland for the future it is that we will have an international reputation as a location for the research and development of new products and services and the selective manufacturing that would go along with that and that can be competitive from the silent, as it were. It is around that context that we need to have an open discussion and an open understanding because we tend to summarise economic investment in what I would call, to some extent, the old ways, namely, on the basis of the number of jobs that have been creased by the IDA or by IDA companies or by Enterprise Ireland companies. For decades we have had two segments of the economy almost operating in parallel to each other as opposed to integrated together. My vision is that we would have a seamless enterprise engagement structure. We are not there yet but we can get there. That means that the multinational companies over the past five to seven years have openly gone with open innovation, which means they are declaring that they will no longer undertake in-house all of the research and development to do with their products and service. They have moved to open innovation. Wherever they find opportunities, they will work with those companies. That opens a door to a whole new relationship between Irish small and medium enterprises, SMEs, which have invested in research and development and innovation and technology, to have a whole new relationship with the multinational companies based in Ireland. It gives the multinationals the opportunity also to be more competitive in supplying the needs of their customers.

From my experience in Enterprise Ireland, the one organisation I would hold up as being excellent at this is a Accensure in Dublin which has strategic relationships with 15 to 17 Irish companies which regularly bid and win international business together where the Irish company picks up 10% to 15% of the value of a sizable contract and does very good business. Also, when we start to summarise the jobs created, around 70% of the jobs created in IDA companies tend to be in the large urban areas but the opposite is the case in Enterprise Ireland where about 70% of the jobs are outside the main urban areas. Perhaps there is merit in presenting that data together as an integrated approach to where jobs are being created. In many cases, Irish companies, certainly Enterprise Ireland supported companies, are taking on people today because they have got contracts from overseas companies either in Ireland or overseas. It is important to understand the different and varied relationships that can exist. An Irish company may take on people in Donegal and they are recruited to meet the needs of overseas companies but we never explain that to anybody. We never explain the cause and effect of the investments. There is a great opportunity for us to do that.

There is also a great opportunity for the FDI companies to effectively mentor Irish companies and they need mentoring. The Irish companies, like the overseas companies, have to compete against global competition every day. There are ways of schooling companies in how to be more proficient in terms of bidding within the procurement rules and regulations of multinationals and so forth. They have to learn that and it takes time to do so. Those are some of the challenges that I see. The global competition challenge is a very big one and, as part of that, I would take up the issue of suggestions of tax avoidance associated with Ireland. We have a very transparent tax system in Ireland. When the jury concludes its deliberations, other locations around the world may have to explain their position but I do not think we will be explaining ours any more than we have explained it to date. It is a cental part of our economic policy and personally I would be very supportive of it. I will ask Mr. Barry O'Leary to comment on a number of the issues, starting with the patent cliff issue and the response to it which I know the IDA has put in place.