Mr. Alan Robinson:

If the Chairman or members of the committee are interested in seeing a microcosm of what inward direct investment can achieve, I would suggest they go down to Barrow Street and have a cup of coffee outside Insomnia at 4 o'clock in the afternoon just when the changeover is taking place for Google. At that time, one will see hundreds of young, well qualified, well paid workers stepping out of the Google offices, getting into taxis and paying for their fares, getting onto the DART and paying for their fares, going to local apartments which they are renting or on which they are paying a mortgage, or going to the local shops and buying produce. It is a real microcosm of what is happening all over the docklands with these companies having arrived. Beyond that, there are hundreds of small and medium-sized enterprises that have set up because of the existence of these companies and they are supplying the companies with products and services. Docklands is an important place, particularly from a commercial point of view.

We are a voluntary association of business people. We have neither an office nor an executive, but we do have a great deal of passion about the docklands and what it can achieve. We promote enterprise positively and all the positive things that enterprise can do with our docklands business awards. We also have created a list of the 500 plus businesses that exist within the docklands. Believe it or not, before we started there was no such list. We thank the Dublin City Enterprise Board for supporting us on that.

We also promote the docklands as a place to visit and enjoy. It is an oft ignored area of the city. Many who have been resident in the city for decades are not familiar with what the docklands has and can offer. We have taken over from the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, DDDA, in terms of those promotions. The authority asked us to do it.

Now we have two festivals. The first is title-sponsored by Waterways Ireland and at our third event last year, there were more than 80,000 in attendance. The second, title-sponsored by the Dublin Port Company, is the Dublin Port Riverfest. Last year, we held our first event on a derelict area of North Wall Quay at which there were 38,500 in attendance. That gives an idea of the remarkable things that can be done in docklands with the existing infrastructure.