Mr. Martin Shanahan:

Deputy McFadden's analysis of what companies are looking for in terms of the availability of talent and quality of life is right. As I pointed out in my opening statement, we are at an all-time high in terms of the number of people employed in multinationals. The number of IDA site visits fluctuates but it is true to say that it has declined a little. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, site visits have probably become less important in a very connected age. Companies can do a huge amount from corporate head offices in the US, Europe or elsewhere. They can get to know an area and we can talk to them and show them a lot about an area and a particular building so the physical site visits the Deputy says there is a preoccupation with have become less important. They will become less important as we try to do more in the space of showing people what Ireland is like without them having to touch down here or having to repeatedly touch down.

People overlook the fact that a significant portion of our investment comes from existing companies who are growing their presence in Ireland either in the locations in which they are located or alternative locations. Zimmer, which already had a very strong base in Shannon, announced in the first few weeks of the year that it was opening up a 250-person operation in Oranmore. Obviously, the requirement for site visits where companies already have a good understanding of Ireland and an area declines. We present companies who are coming in for site visits with proposed itineraries and locations so we get a sense of what they are looking for and what might take their fancy. They ultimately decide where they would like to visit. It could be that they have some perception of a particular area, they know another company that is in the area or they have sold well to a particular area. That changes over time. Site visits are not the ultimate arbiter or even a good proxy of our performance if one looks at site visits relative to the investment and increases in employment.

The pharmaceutical sector has performed very well for Ireland over many years. Obviously the sector hit the patent cliff which resulted in it taking a pause as companies tried to figure out where they sat within that. Ireland has probably not been as heavily impacted by the patent cliff as was initially thought. We are seeing further investment in the bio-pharmaceutical sector, with Bristol-Meyers Squibb announcing a $900 million investment in Cruiserath in north Dublin, for example, after last year's budgetary announcement. We are also seeing a huge amount of mergers and acquisitions activity within the sector, as companies trade different elements of their businesses, merge or divest. Some of that still has to play out and we will then see what comes through on the next wave of development.

I will have to double-check to what the reference to "miscellaneous industry" relates, unless one of my colleagues knows. I will have to double-check which companies are being referred to, but clearly they are companies which we found difficult to categorise under any of the other headings.