Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

I thank Dr. Farry. It is great to see him and I thank him for his contributions. I will comment on the point he raised on investment, and I will make a brief comment on infrastructure. Mr D'Arcy might contribute on the barriers.

On the investment issue and the various developments around investment –I am talking specifically about foreign direct investment in answering the first part of the question – there are quite a few moving pieces. Dr. Farry will be aware that, from 1 January, we are to move to a 15% headline corporate tax rate. It does level the pitch to a degree. Essentially, for most businesses it will probably mean a 50% increase in their effective tax rate, or close to it, because the effective tax rate was probably around 10% rather than the headline figure of 12.5%. However, it signifies a shift away from the importance of corporate tax generally in investment decisions and the matrix of factors driving investment decisions. Over time, it will be quite a significant development for the all-island economy and investment-location decisions across the island.

As Dr. Farry rightly mentioned, the labour opportunity for the all-island economy is by far the most significant issue. There is a genuine opportunity for us now to present an all-island offering of skills and professional opportunities for investment. Increasingly, we are getting quite close to an all-island labour market of nearly 4 million people. There is significant strength in the critical mass of that. The Irish economy has been fortunate in recent years in that operations established in it through foreign direct investment have been able to attract specialist skills from the wider European labour market. With regard to advanced and specialist operations, which reflect the nature of investment in the Irish economy now, we must realise we are not going to have all the skills in the domestic market. However, we have had the safety valve of a European labour market. Clearly, the housing situation is now affecting that significantly, and it is becoming much more difficult for companies establishing a specialist technical operation in the Irish economy to avail of the wider European labour market and have the mobility of skills. Therefore, the all-island offering of 4 million people, new ways of working with that labour force of 4 million, new ways of working and the demographic growth across both jurisdictions on the island represent something much stronger than what we see elsewhere in Europe. We have a really strong opportunity but need to co-ordinate how we pitch the skills offering. Moreover, we need to invest where we have shortcomings. Some of the practical things we are considering regarding shortcomings include all-island apprenticeship models and all-island in-work company training programmes. It is a question of how to get some of the investments happening on an all-island basis. The mindset of being able to present the offering of an investment anywhere on the island so as to be able to tap into what needs to be an improving and more advanced labour force represents a great opportunity.

I would like to make a quick comment on the economies of scale and infrastructure. In this regard, the really sharp end relates to renewables and energy. There are very specialist international players, whether in the sphere of offshore wind energy or other parts of the decarbonisation investment. Markets much bigger than the island of Ireland are attracting the capacity but the economy-of-scale opportunity associated with aligning investments on the island could be really significant in getting some of the players into the Irish market. The energy issue, particularly concerning offshore wind, is one in respect of which several players have said to us that there is a significant economy-of-scale opportunity.