Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Shanahan and his team and thank Mr. Shanahan for his responses so far. I thank him and his staff for the work they have done during what have been difficult times over the past number of years. In light of the results - all extremely positive and successful - they have presented today, one would swear there was no pandemic at all.

I have a question relating to a serviced site in Clonmel, in my county of Tipperary but I might come to it second if I have time at the end. I wish to touch on a matter that Mr. Shanahan did not get to respond to fully when my colleague, Deputy Stanton, spoke about it, that being, remote working. I am from an area in Tipperary where many people travel to Cork, Limerick or even Waterford to work. Before the pandemic, there would be queues of cars parked up on roads just before motorways as people drove together to work. That has not happened during the past two years. There is an opportunity for the IDA and the Government to support the option of living in rural towns and working from remote hubs in Tipperary where a company might be based in Cork, Limerick or Waterford.

Can I have Mr. Shanahan's views on that point and what the IDA might be able to do from its perspective?

There was an announcement this morning where the Central Bank was talking about an expected growth in the economy over the next three years and where some newspapers are talking about it being back to the boom, which is a worrying statement. What is the IDA’ s perspective on its own growth over the next three years if we are looking at the economy improving from all of the predictions being made? Where does that leave the IDA in respect of its selling points for investors coming in to Ireland? Obviously, corporation tax, and I note that the response Mr. Shanahan has given is that it is a level base across the whole world now which is true, was one of of our selling points. When Mr. Shanahan goes to companies to attract them into Ireland, what are the main selling points? I will come back to the more local question after his response to this point, please.