Mr. Denis Curran:

In terms of connectivity from a telecommunications perspective substantial data centre investment has already taken place and is currently taking place. We saw an example of that recently with the announcement in Limerick. Investments by Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft cumulatively will run to more than €3 billion. Obviously connectivity on and off the island, both back to north America and to mainland Europe, is extremely important and we would welcome any diversity and any increase in capacity that would enable those types of investments to take place. From a construction perspective, data centres are very labour intensive and are very welcome for that reason.

In terms of the financial services sector, the Deputy is right in saying that it is far too early to say what will happen. The companies themselves cannot with any degree of specificity quantify the impact of Brexit, either from a people or an activity perspective. They are going through a process at the moment, based on interactions. We have had a high degree of interaction with financial services institutions from around the globe which have operations in London. A lot of them have formed Brexit teams and those teams have carried out impact analyses. Based on those analyses, they are now putting together potential solutions on paper. As part of those solutions, Ireland has the potential to be a recipient jurisdiction for relocated activities.

In terms of capturing the quantity of jobs or investment, however, it is far too early to say. What they have communicated to us is that they would like to make an informed decision, in as much as they can, against the backdrop of the political uncertainty. They may be on a commercial timeline that is not compatible with the political timeline so we would anticipate that some of their commercial decisions will be made prior to any final political negotiations as a result of the activation of article 50.