Mr. Martin Shanahan:

To be very clear, Ireland has one city of international scale - Dublin. Everything thereafter is below that threshold. The analysis we have looked at suggests that issues arise where there are not urban populations of at least 10,000 people. We are putting this in an international context. We are competing for investment with cities like Shanghai, which has a population of 23 million, and Beijing, which has a population of 19 million. There are 35 urban areas in Europe in which more than one million people live. There are fifty in the US. That is the reality of the situation. Our strategy is to try to build clusters in the urban areas we already have. Having a population is not sufficient. An existing base, a supply of skills and third level educational institutions are all necessary. These areas need to show that they are a nice place to live and work in order that they can attract investors.