Ms Julie Sinnamon:

I will start from the perspective of Enterprise Ireland. We will be announcing our 2019 results in the next few weeks. We have a board meeting tomorrow at which those figures will be presented. There are record levels of exports from Irish companies. As I said earlier, many of our companies came into this Covid-19 crisis in a strong position. At this stage, we are seeing an impact on exports across the world and this differs by sector and region. Some sectors, such as food service, for example, have seen a strong impact on companies, whereas the consumer food side has been less affected. Areas such as high-tech construction, where we have a strong group of companies, including those in medtech, have continued to grow.

It is too early to know more, because it really depends on how global markets open. In the past week and a half, we have reopened eight of our offices globally, particularly those in Asia, and we are seeing demand return in those markets where previously companies had faced issues relating to sub-supply chains and other matters. That is not to say that there are not still issues. Movement of people is still a major issue, but the movement of products has continued with relatively little delay. As markets recover and as government stimulus packages are put in place, we will see a recovery from the perspective of Irish enterprise exports as that happens. However, we do not yet know what the final outlook will be for 2020.