Mr. Martin Shanahan:

When the Chairman says there is more work to be done, we absolutely agree with her. I never envisage a day where every county or region is happy with what they have. I would also remind the committee that the IDA is one part of the enterprise development story. Obviously, there is agriculture, tourism and indigenous investment, and it all adds up. An overall picture of a region is required.

The Chairman alluded to some of the investments we already have. As she knows, there are 35 companies in the region employing more than 6,000. She referred to Bausch & Lomb, which had a huge announcement recently. We have built an advance technology building in Waterford, for which, thankfully, we secured an applicant, Opko Health. We are about to go again with an advance building in Waterford and another in Carlow. We have had investment in Carlow through MSD and there is also Red Hat in that region.

We will continue to market the region. I agree there are some strong assets. With the board of IDA, I was in Wexford recently to review all that is happening there in an engagement with the CEO of the Wexford local authority. We are well aware of the offering and we will continue to market the region. I am also confident that we can make progress because of areas like Limerick. It is not an either-or. There was a period when Limerick was not doing as well as it is and, thankfully, it has turned around. Whether it is one or multiple investments, investments beget more investments. There is an element of that involved and I accept we need to build more clusters. We spend a lot of time working with local authorities trying to figure out what the cluster might be, what the benefits are, and what else they can do in addition to what we can do. We are marketing a region, but we obviously need the regions to support themselves in terms of making the best of themselves.