Mr. Frank Ryan:

I suppose one could say the same for when I went to Enterprise Ireland ten years ago. I was an insider of development agencies. It did not stop us doing a complete root-and-branch review of how Enterprise Ireland engages. The results are there to be seen. We have an indigenous sector now that is performing and that is increasingly fit for purpose and can win contracts against global competitors on an ongoing basis. It has never stopped me from asking the hard questions. Only by asking the hard questions does one get insight.

One of the hard questions the Deputy raised is this issue about 80% of the FDI coming from the United States of America. It is a key issue. My view on it is this. In the markets where one is strong, one must stay strong. The United States is a market that is enormously important from the point of view of FDI, trading opportunities for Irish companies and tourism.

Most of the overseas companies that have established here have a mandate from their parent companies in EMEA as it is termed - Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We may need to discuss with those companies opportunities to broaden their mandate here. Traditionally, that is the mandate that this part of the world gets in terms of subsidiaries being established.

The world has changed, and has changed dramatically in the past five years while we have been dealing with our own significant challenges here at home. By 2030 at the latest, China will be the largest economy in the world. Brazil is of enormous strategic importance going forward because it is the only country on its own that can feed China. The vast majority of the oil that still remains in the world is located across the Eurabian peninsula. Russia will heat western Europe in terms of gas supplies. Our world here in Ireland has changed dramatically and the new IDA strategy will not be a voyage to the past. It has to be a voyage into the future and in developing new forms of FDI with the regions of the world that are growing fastest.

I am delighted Senator Quinn is here. You gave me my first job as a kid in Dundalk. I was a box-boy in your supermarket and I learned a lot from you and from watching you. You had a very innovative style of management which was clear even then, and even to a kid like myself carrying boxes of groceries to cars. It was a long time ago. My first paycheck from you was for £1 and 10 shillings, which was very important at the time.