Mr. Mark Redmond:

I will respond first to Deputy Keating's question on the pharmaceutical sector. He asked if there are different standards what will happen if the EU-US trade deal is successfully negotiated. In my opening comments I referred to one of the remarkable results of Ireland's US trading relationship, which is nearly 250,000 highly skilled jobs. We have tens of thousands of highly skilled people in the country who are working in pharmaceutical companies, med-tech companies and food and nutritional plants. In many of those plants what is produced has to be produced to two very high and exacting but separate standards - those of the United States and those of the European Union. EU-US trade is not saying that if one is higher than the other it will reduce the higher one or converge, because often the differences between the two sets of requirements are infinitesimal. Because they are not recognising each other, they both want separate sign-off, validation and audit. What the EU-US trade is seeking is to maintain those high standards but, where appropriate, that each would have recognition or due regard to the other standards. If we are happy that the US requirements satisfy our requirements, we do not have to separately go in and inspect or audit. That will mean that those Irish and US companies will have more money to invest elsewhere, rather than on unnecessary duplicate compliance.

The Vice Chairman asked what concerns the American Chamber of Commerce may have about the EU-US trade deal. In short, its concern is that it does not want a deal for the sake of it, so it should not be rushed, but that it wants a comprehensive deal. Last week, US research published by Pew Research indicated that the majority of the citizens of the US are in favour of a trade deal. I doubt that would be the case if European Union citizens were polled. We would like to see - which is what today is all about - a greater awareness among EU citizens of what, ultimately, this trade deal is meant to be about, which in our opinion is a better answer for consumers and the SME sector.