Mr. Martin Shanahan:

I thank the Senator very much for his questions. On remote working and what the Senator has observed during the course of the pandemic, it is the case that the foreign direct investment, FDI, sector and the economy as a whole has performed extraordinarily well. The FDI sector continued to operate during the period while many people worked from home. That had been a proof point for the companies involved so there have been many learnings for companies during this period as to what and how well things could be done during that period. My expectation is that that will not be lost post pandemic, perhaps, because the main issue for most companies that we are engaged with is access to talent. These companies will try to source current talent from wherever it is available which includes regional and indeed rural locations, in some cases within Ireland, but also within other countries and we have to compete for this.

This opens up opportunities and our clients see those opportunities. Many of them are giving very serious thought to how they are going to structure themselves, what type of working model they are going to use, whether fully remote or hybrid and in some cases there is a demand to come back to the office for very specific reasons. This presents opportunities for regional and rural Ireland and specifically for Tipperary and we will certainly be trying to ensure that we work with clients to advise them of those opportunities.

On the projections around the economy, clearly there has been a very robust recovery from the pandemic. FDI was, obviously, very resilient throughout the pandemic but we are now seeing a recovery in the domestically trading part of the economy which is largely down to consumer spend. That will lead to some challenges within the economy as to the availability of resources and the carrying capacity of the economy. The IDA is targeting 50,000 jobs between 2021 and 2024. I see that as realistic and that there is a very high possibility that we will be able to deliver on that but nothing is obviously certain. Again, we operate in a competitive environment.

On a broad level, the issues are around inflation, supply chains, geopolitical issues and if we need a reminder as to how they can arise we can see what is happening now on the eastern border of Europe. Domestically then, the issues are going to be around talent availability, as I mentioned in earlier answers, and supply of utilities such as water electricity, housing and border infrastructure.