Mr. Eddie Wilson:

On the recruitment, what was different about us was from day one of the pandemic, say St. Patrick's Day 2020, we just thought about the day we were going to start again. We did not know when it was going to be. We kept everybody employed and kept everybody current. That did not seem like such a remarkable, innovative or creative thing to do at the time. What we did not realise was everybody else let their staff go and were then surprised that those staff were not there when they needed them. A lot of people left the workforce.

Across Europe, we have had no real difficulty with recruiting staff, except in two areas. One is the UK where, because of Brexit, free movement of people has changed and entry-level jobs are more difficult to fill with a dwindling workforce. Here in Ireland, the number one block for getting people is accommodation. There is no accommodation. I think there were about six houses available for rent in the Swords area yesterday. We have nothing but people who want to come and work for us. Many people come from overseas from places like Spain, Italy, France and places like that. They want to come and work here. There are also Irish people. We recruit locally through tourism schools and all that but we bring people through as well because they get a job with us and they want to go home to Italy where we have a base. They come here and try it and they cannot get accommodation. I never thought we would have a situation where we cannot get people to come to Dublin because they have nowhere to live.