Mr. Kevin Sherry:

Regarding the steps being taken to avoid a hard Brexit, our focus is sector by sector and company by company. Just short of 1,500 companies, which we have identified as exporting to the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, are affected in different ways. Some export to multiple markets. If they are already embedded in a number of other markets, they can switch resources to put more emphasis on those that are not as affected by Brexit, such as other euro-denominated markets or markets that are already established. Companies with the United Kingdom as their primary market face different factors. It is too early to say what is likely to emerge in the negotiations by way of tariffs in particular areas but one of the immediate factors to which companies must respond is the exchange rate. There are a number of strands to this response. One is that companies immediately look towards their competitiveness. In the short term, they are looking towards their hedging strategy. Very importantly, companies are not in the business of gambling on the currency exchange rate. Therefore, it is about creating certainty for themselves, be it through hedging through financial institutions or natural hedging in terms of some of their sourcing activities. In some cases, companies will be considering sourcing where they might have been sourcing in other parts of Europe with a view to switching some of that sourcing into the United Kingdom so they have a natural hedge. That type of activity is taking place.

With regard to other responses, we have seen companies in certain sectors opting for price increases in the United Kingdom. Some have been successful. Actually, it is not just Irish companies that are affected. There are substantial additional exporters to the United Kingdom, and they are also affected by the same factors. It is not just Irish companies looking for increases. This is likely to lead to knock-on inflation in the UK market.

With regard to the 47% that said there has been no change, they said there has been no change for the moment because of the relative uncertainty in the market. However, as we move towards hardening positions, the companies are moving towards spreading their risk and considering other markets. One of the factors in this regard is that Enterprise Ireland is providing a lot of support to companies in evaluating options for other markets, including in respect of the questions as to how transportable their products are, how attractive those products are in other markets, and how well positioned the companies are to go after other markets. The first port of call for companies whose primary export market is the United Kingdom is other English-speaking markets. This is because language skills and culture are important. One finds that the United States and some other English-speaking markets are very important. With regard to our activities in this area, we brought virtually all our overseas team back two weeks ago to engage in the discussions and work with the companies. That is not something that happened this week or last week. It is something we have been doing for some time but the urgency associated with it has increased. We are deploying a lot of resources in this area, just as we are focusing on competitiveness and helping companies to focus on becoming lean and making improvements.

With regard to resources, Enterprise Ireland has been no different from any other organisation over the past four to five years. We have reduced our numbers substantially in recent years. I will ask my colleague, Mr. Murray, to talk specifically about the current numbers.

We have not reduced our resources overseas. In fact, we have increased resources in recent years in what we term "high-growth markets". These include the Asia-Pacific region and the Gulf region, in particular. Under the budget allocation, we received an increase in both our operating budget and the budget for staffing resources.

There was an additional allocation for the Department and Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland have an additional 50 staff. We are in discussions with the Department on the deployment of these staff. We see the additional staff helping companies in more established markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe and increasing the resource available in Ireland to assist companies with their competitiveness.