Mr. Ian Talbot:

Yes, please. I thank Deputy Quinlivan for his comments about Limerick. It is a very good example. Limerick County Council under Mr. Conn Murray and the local chamber are working together, which has certainly helped, and Limerick is looking great these days, so well done to all concerned there.

Regarding the concept of help for our SMEs, yes, there is a gap where the IDA is helping FDI, Enterprise Ireland is helping a limited number of high-potential start-ups, and the LEOs are down at the county enterprise board-plus level. The one thing I will say is that what we are working very closely at, as an organisation, is trying to make sure that our chambers come forward with a single message in every county. The message is one of looking for investment and engagement with the local authority and the LEO in the chamber's area. We see that there is real potential for LEOs and the chambers working together with local authorities. I would potentially have a concern just about a new organisation with new funding actually pushing chambers out. As a chamber network, we are called a not-for-profit. It is a frustrating description because we have to go out and encourage members to join and pay us money to do the work we do. We do not like to see ourselves frozen out by additional State investment in an area where we think we can really help. Yes, there is room for it, but we would like to think that the structures are potentially already there if we give the right signals to the committee's network of State organisations and our network of chambers to work together to invest in those areas.

Going back to the M1 issues and so on, this is why in our submission we have really focused on the need to continue to invest in public transport. I was delighted to see that this week Iarnród Éireann has been able to invest in capital stock for the first time in ten years. In response to Deputy Breathnach, I live in Malahide, so I see the Dundalk trains coming in and how jammed they are and I see people leaving Malahide and driving into town every morning and I wonder why they do not get the DART. To some extent, however, they do not because at key times there are not enough trains or they are very full. Therefore, that critical investment to make the most of infrastructure we already have and the need to keep putting in new structures, such as the new metro project, are vital for us in ensuring we learn as we build out growing cities under the national planning framework, Project Ireland 2040, and ensuring we learn from what Dublin did right and what we could have done better.

Regarding Brexit and climate change, tomorrow Chambers Ireland will bring out an announcement that all our chambers around the country have signed up to a pledge on the sustainable development goals. As a network going back to our community base, we are very focused on the need to drive business forward on climate change. I ask the committee to consider, for example, the necessary changes we will need to make in our grid, the types of fuels we use and the potential to retool people around the country to work on climate change projects rather than traditional power generation projects. Tying in to that, we need to encourage entrepreneurs and increased enterpreneurial activity. We need to encourage people to go out with new ideas, start up new businesses and so on.

We have been very focused on infrastructure this year, but we will always, in the background, have things that we need to encourage our entrepreneurs. We encourage people to become entrepreneurs and have a go, thus generating more employment and some additional wealth that we can push into the economy. My colleague, Mr. Doyle, may wish to talk about the living city initiative, LCI.