Mr. Martin Shanahan:

All of them. Let us take this back a step and look at the example of an international manufacturing company coming into Ireland. I am using manufacturing as an example because it remains significantly important to Ireland as it comprises 23% of gross domestic product, GDP. Our nearest neighbour, the UK, is at 10% or 11% in this regard. Deputy Lawlor earlier asked whether we should be concerned about manufacturing representing this percentage of GDP. No; we should try to increase it. We are really good at high-value, highly regulated, zero-defect manufacturing. However, there are significant inputs in this sector.

On the point made by Deputy Collins regarding costs, there are costs for labour, energy, water, wastewater and construction. When international companies are making a decision, they have an Excel spreadsheet with columns for each of these costs and they compare different jurisdictions from a cost, productivity and availability of labour perspective and so on. We need as many of the cells in the spreadsheet to be green for Ireland so as to put us ahead of competitors in all of those areas. I do not suggest we have significant competitiveness issues currently, but that we need to ensure these issues do not arise. Some of our strategy in terms of spreading investment throughout the country is an effort to ameliorate cost pressures in any one location.

The main issue is not competitiveness but the availability of talent. This is the biggest issue. Throughout the US, Asia and Europe, companies talk about the availability of people to undertake the work they want done. If we are to compare Dublin to international locations in terms of the availability of talent, we compare well currently. Much of the talent required is available here, but we need to ensure we continue to produce as many people as possible for the sectors that need them through our education system if we are to continue to remain attractive to people from Europe and further afield. We need to continue to train highly skilled, talented people who will contribute in terms of productivity and our potential to attract investment. From the competitiveness perspective, this is the most important issue on our agenda.