Ms Julie Sinnamon:

In dealing with the Senator’s figures on the UK and the diversity issue, the UK figure was €7.9 billion which represented 31%. Interestingly, if one looks at those figures for 12 to 15 years ago, the UK represented 42% of our total exports. Over that period we reduced the overall dependence on the UK market and grew this market by approximately 50% but we grew the rest of the world at a faster rate. That has been the specific focus of our work with companies in the past number of years. Prior to 2016, we felt it was in the interests of Irish companies to have a more diversified and balanced portfolio of markets. Therefore, in 2015 we set a target of exports into the eurozone of €4.1 billion and had it not been for Covid-19 we would have been in a strong position to hit the €6 billion market figure by the end of 2020. We are currently collecting the figures and it will be challenging because all of the figures have fallen back quite considerably in that year and I do not believe we will hit that figure.

As to the companies themselves, we have developed programmes such as Enter the Eurozone and have set specific targets for companies that were in the UK that we considered had products and services that are suitable for the eurozone, and we have moved to get these companies under those programmes. This was also intended for companies that were in one eurozone market to scale up and move into additional markets within the eurozone.

Those are companies of all sizes, but particularly smaller companies, many of which were going in for the first time, and also companies across all sectors. It was everything from life sciences, to construction to engineering companies and companies of different sizes within a sector.

The comment I made on the implications of Brexit for smaller companies specifically was driven by the fact that many large companies have the bandwidth and corporate teams to be able to deal with these issues. For smaller companies, it is just another additional thing to be piled onto small management teams that are already stretched. That is why it is particularly important for these companies. They have been the focus of much of the work we have done over the last three to four years through all the clinics around the country and all the communications, to try to get the smaller companies that did not have the bandwidth to take action.