Mr. Shane Nolan:

We have a memorandum of understanding with our parent Department whereby our clients, once they get an endorsement and visa application from the IDA, get fast track status. Obviously, the IDA is much closer to each of these companies than anybody in the Department's processing office. Therefore, validating the bona fides of the application is outsourced somewhat to the IDA and because we are closer to the process, we can say "Yes" that it is a relevant application, thereby keeping everybody happy that there is nothing untoward happening. As a result, the due diligence process is a lot quicker. Our clients say that from a comparative perspective with other European countries, the situation is much better here. This is a significant competitive advantage for us.

Let me relate an anecdotal story on the broader team Ireland approach to this issue. A CEO of a large Asian prospect for the IDA, a high profile individual, was in New York and was due to travel to Ireland, hopefully to give us a positive message, but realised he had not applied for his visa. His flight was due to leave in three hours and within an hour his visa was in a taxi on its way to the Irish consulate and was brought to him to enable him to travel. He mentions this at meetings at which we are not present, which indicates to us the impact of the fast track visa cannot be overstated and is a competitive advantage. However, the provision of a visa must be legitimate also. We cannot just let anybody through.

Sometimes we get a sense there is a fear that there is a huge flow of workers coming into Ireland with Asian investors, but our experience has been that this is not the case. An initial start-up team does come to transfer knowledge and business culture, but the intent in all cases is to supplement staff with locally hired people and for some of those people hired locally to travel to the headquarters for knowledge transfer there.