Mr. Patrick Leonard:

Since the 1960s, there has been a great increase in the number of multinational businesses coming to Ireland. The solicitors' sector has provided a very advanced service to those multinationals, particularly through the large and medium-sized firms in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. I expect that it is the business provided by those large multinational firms which has allowed the legal sector in Ireland to develop in the way it has. One would have to ask members of those firms about it in more detail, but our understanding is that the large multinationals in Ireland use the large firms in Dublin and some of the regional centres as a matter of routine. It may be that there is some type of work that still goes to their London or New York departments, but they all certainly engage with the firms here.

An issue I did not deal with was whether people had already moved here. The perception of the Bar is that there has been an increase in the last five or ten years, in particular with English insurance firms moving to Dublin. There are some larger international firms, in particular in the funds sector, and some transnational firms which have moved to Dublin, but this, in truth, has been in small numbers.