Mr. Martin Shanahan:

It is clear that in an economy that is likely to be working close to capacity given the very significant recovery in employment, talent availability will continue to be an issue. Our strategy has been, and will continue to be, to target high-value activity, particularly around research, development and innovation but also corporate functions and high-value manufacturing. That is where we are pitching so that we are maximising the available talent within the economy. Related to the Deputy's last point, multinationals have a role to play in investing in talent and do a lot of that within their own sites. That is where we are going. Within sectors, we have targeted specific activities. For instance, Ireland was very successful at advanced pharmaceutical ingredients and at bioprocessing. We believe the next front in that sector will be selegiline therapy and advanced therapeutic medicinal products. We are working on those types of activities to ensure that we are continuing to capture the high-value activity.

The Deputy mentioned the programme initiative that is connecting multinationals to indigenous companies and trying to increase the amount that is purchased in the Irish economy of both services and Irish companies' products. I think that has been successful. It is reflected in the figures of the year-on-year increase in services and materials being supplied to multinational companies. However, I agree that there is room for more integration. Often these companies are making decisions about entering global supply chains. It is not just for the Irish operation to purchase here but that the whole organisation is able to purchase within Ireland. Our view, and one shared by Enterprise Ireland, is that clusters have a role to play here. It is about setting up clusters where we deepen the integration between indigenous companies and multinational companies at every level, not only in the straightforward procurement channel but how products are developed in the first place, sharing of know-how and about greater integration. We have set up a number of clusters as a pilot in order to do that.

I certainly believe that companies in the IDA Ireland portfolio have a role, or an increased role, to play in apprenticeships. It is something on which we are heavily engaged with all the relevant parties here in terms of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research and Innovation, SOLAS and the local training boards, to look at opportunities for how multinationals can support their efforts and vice versa. Within IDA Ireland we have set up a talent transformation and innovation department to engage with those stakeholders to ensure that talent lens is brought to what we are doing.

On power and data centres, I think that EirGrid and IDA Ireland's ambitions are aligned on the need for available power for large energy users. We are seeking a reinforced grid and enough generation for large energy users. That is not unique to data centres. It is clear that we are now constrained in Dublin and on the east coast. Where investors seeking significant amounts of energy, regardless of the sector, there is a challenge to supply that. There is an EirGrid plan, "Shaping our Electricity Future", which we support and we would like to see executed as quickly as practicable.