Mr. Leo Clancy:

I thank the Senator for his kind comments and it is something I look forward to. I have been familiar with the Questum Acceleration Centre for a number of years. The Senator’s question on capacity is interesting. It is interesting that in recent weeks I have met two large companies with well over 100 staff which told me that remote working during Covid-19 had been the saving grace for them as regards office space and continuing to grow because they have been able to bring their people back, even though they probably have 150 staff and room for only 100 of them. Remote and blended working is a positive for them when it comes to capacity. The same is true for remote working hubs. There are probably business model challenges for a number of the remote working hubs in attracting back people who will want to take long-term desks in a physical centre with the advent of home working. That is a challenge on one side. There is an opportunity for them to become hubs in a much more general sense. The one certainty is that every town that has a hub believes it is important to the vibrancy of the town to have a centre where business gets done. Whether that becomes the place where people work all the time or where they come for events, advice and other services is a question that will be asked more often in the next 12 months. It will be interesting to see the results of that.

We are always positive on developing road infrastructure.

Some sites in our base would not necessarily be as large as some of the very large foreign direct investment, FDI, sites, but infrastructure development is positive for all business.

We can look at the very small FDI on a case-by-case basis with our colleagues in the Industrial Development Authority, IDA. We are open to and have had discussions in the past on that. It is a discussion we can take away. We can see what each of our agencies is allowed to do under statute and the services order and make appropriate arrangements. We are happy to hear about any specific cases in that vein and to follow up with the Senator offline.