Mr. Martin Shanahan:

On the longevity and stickability of these companies, we deal with companies in the IDA Ireland portfolio which have had more than 60 years' commitment to Ireland as well as the new-name companies that arrived in the last year. From an IDA Ireland perspective, we want to see both. We want to see the companies that are already here reinvesting because that is the best proof. The companies that are here understand the environment and see everything that we all see and they still have confidence in Ireland. The point around reinvestment and the amount of reinvestment from existing companies is probably the strongest endorsement of Ireland as a competitive location for attracting investment.

The point about the low level of job losses within the portfolio is important. There will always be churn and job losses but job losses as a percentage of the overall portfolio, which has continued to grow, have continued to fall. Those companies that we have here are maintaining their employments here and their commitment.

My opening statement alluded to the very substantial impact on the Irish economy from multinationals in terms of expenditure of close to €28 billion, of which €17 billion is payroll and €11 billion services and materials. The average capital investment last year was around €7 billion, having oscillated between €5 billion and €7 billion. That is before we get to the corporate tax take.

While this is a matter for the Revenue Commissioners primarily, my understanding is that approximately 80% of all tax takes come from multinationals. Approximately 66% of that, or two thirds of it, comes from multinationals that are exporting, for example, multinationals that are supported by the IDA. This does not include all multinationals, some of which service the domestic economy. A huge proportion of the increasing corporate tax take comes from multinationals, which allows the State to pay for all the other things we need. These include investments into infrastructure, schools and our health system.

In relation to hubs, as the Deputy pointed out and as Mr. Curran alluded to earlier, we now have many examples of hubs operating around the country. They have developed somewhat organically. Some of them are private sector-owned and some of them are public sector developments by local authorities. Some of them have input from State agencies, such as from the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. Many of them are at the level whereby multinational companies would be happy to engage with them, although maybe not all of them.

We have yet to see - and this probably will only play out over the coming months and next year or two as we come out of the Covid-19 pandemic - whether those who elect to work remotely are more happy working remotely at home or whether they are more likely to work in remote hubs. I am not sure if that will be primarily driven by the companies themselves. While they will have a role to play in that, it will be about what individuals want to do. Do they want remote work at home, or do they want to remote work in hubs? In some instances, a hub may be a requirement, for instance, where individuals do not have an office environment at home, the availability of space or a sufficient Wi-Fi connection. Therefore, a hub might be more attractive. We are engaging with our client companies on this to try to understand what their models will be around the workplace of the future, as well as the extent to which they will be office-based versus completely remote.

Earlier, I said to Deputy Stanton and, I think, to Senator Garvey that this now increases the opportunity for rural and regional prospective employees to access these multinationals. It also means that these companies can now recruit anywhere in the world. The idea that there is a centre around which one coalesces has been somewhat broken by the pandemic. Now companies, given the huge demand for talent, are looking at other models. They can potentially access that talent anywhere. That creates a challenge for IDA Ireland, because it means there are now countries, regions within countries and locations in other countries that are competitors for investment but which had not been previously. It has made it all the more competitive for us going out there to look for investment.