Mr. Aidan Sweeney:

I should say to Deputy Stanton that this is also an opportunity for us to support Europe in this objective, because Europe wants to become the hub of IP activities globally and to influence them from our policy perspectives, oversight and so forth. The key thing for us is that it will only work if there is a strong common law system involved. It is developed on a hybrid system between common law and civil law. We want to be able to say to our European partners over the coming months that we can support them in this message.

The key thing also is to emphasise that an indicative timeframe for the referendum is very important to this because it is a further demonstration of our commitment to it. We need to get out there and market Ireland as the location, but also do the educational process for the SMEs and get them to prepare for this new system. It is coming down the line for them.