Mr. Lorcán Ó Cinnéide:

To respond to Deputy Ferris's question about credibility and the aspirational aspect of the plan, the flip side of that in terms of the committee's interest in it and the fact that it is out for consultation is that this is a draft which has encouraged this discussion, and it is capable of being improved. I would hope that in the final manifestation of this document I will not be addressing those shortcomings but will be able to say that because some of those were addressed, this is now a substantial blueprint that we can use.

All of the concerns the Deputy mentioned can be met. For example, on the question of confidence, there must be confidence for investors. How do we give investors, be they local or international, certainty in terms of providing a framework for our zoning, a clear path towards licensing and a clear policy? If we want to give communities certainty we need some examples to show them. One of the difficulties is that there has been so little that is new for so long. People do not have the benefit of seeing these projects done. Perhaps we should do them on a more modest scale, see how they develop, have tight monitoring of various parameters and have those results published. Organisations such as the Marine Institute and BIM would be on top of that. In doing that, over time, we can build a degree of confidence.

In terms of incentivisation, the country needs to make a choice as to the mix of enterprise types. Are we to have multinational companies coming in which have a pure profit motivation? Intel does, and it is located here. We need to have them coming into this country, and we need to set the parameters in terms of how they come in and the standards to which they operate so that this profit-at-all-costs approach cannot be allowed. We would not be supportive of that approach.

The second point is about local and small-scale operators. Many of the members I represent are small-scale operators who are already investing their own money in this business. We could have a model that would cluster large- and small-scale operators around them. I refer to people working together, technology transfer, mentoring and so on. There are a number of models that we as a country should be considering which will enable this process to progress in a way that is not always confrontational and can produce the jobs and deliver. People are cynical because there has been plan after plan year after year, but nothing has happened. That is the worst thing we can do to people.