Professor Edgar Morgenroth:

I agree with Professor FitzGerald on corporation tax. I doubt it will have that big an effect. We hear this all the time and there undoubtedly will be pressure coming on the corporation tax regime in the Republic. As some changes are likely to come in the near term there, I would not get too excited.

Coming back to Professor FitzGerald's earlier point on corporation tax in Northern Ireland, I was sceptical all along about the reduction in corporation tax. This would be an investment. This would be funded in Northern Ireland on the basis that sometime down the line, there will be benefits in terms of relocations of firms. Because one is simultaneously competing with many other jurisdictions, there is no guarantee that that relocation will materialise.

There is a risk involved in this in the first place. If there are a few pictures on the television that put off investors, one will end up with a very costly policy.

On apprenticeships, I agree that we can do something. I proposed some years ago that there be some kind of all-island student internships. In his point on the Civil Service swaps, Professor FitzGerald referred to economists in the Northern Ireland system. We have built up the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, which has an internship scheme whereby students from universities in the South are taken in. I have received an email from one of my students who was successfully placed in one of the Departments. We could do that on an all-island basis, and send students from the South to the North and vice versa. It is not a difficult thing to do. It would not be very costly and there are only positives. Why not do that?