Mr. Shane Enright:

There was a weakness throughout 2012 and particularly in 2013 on the goods exports side. It was primarily due to the impact of the patent cliff in the pharmaceuticals sector. It impacted on production in and exports from Ireland. We referred to this during our last appearance before the committee. It appears that the effect of this has now faded and one can see from the monthly series that exports of pharmaceutical and chemical products are back in modest positive territory again. Overall, some of the strength in exports in the first half of the year is reflective of the statistical treatment of the production of goods on a contract basis by plants abroad under contract to Irish firms. However, the exports story, if one includes services also, is that the figures for goods and services are up 13% in the second quarter in year-on-year terms.