Dr. Alan Barrett:

As Senator Wall was asking questions, it struck me that there will be a significant interaction between Covid and Brexit. The Senator talked about supports for enterprise. There has never in the history of the State been more support for enterprise but these supports play a particular role at present. We will still have to work out the dynamics of this but we will move to a point, hopefully later this year, where there will be a discussion about withdrawing these supports, and whether we have the fiscal and other bandwidth to redirect some of these supports to address some of the issues that Senator Wall raised.

Senator Malcolm Byrne asked about investment.

This is another question that will be coming up. It is a question of the scope that will be left. I do not want to write the report for the committee but I am already thinking about the challenges to be faced at the end of March. There will be policy challenges relating to Brexit, the ongoing challenge of Covid and the challenge of unwinding the Covid supports. There will be a really complicated mix of policy choices to be made. The Senator's specific question about enterprise supports put the question of how complicated this will be into my head. It is not really an answer but an overall reflection on the challenge.