Professor John FitzGerald:

On FDI, Northern Ireland has a huge opportunity, which this jurisdiction does not, to attract British firms - it may not consider them foreign - to set up in Northern Ireland where they have full access to the UK market and the European market. For example, British Aerospace, which makes the wings for Airbus aircraft, is at risk because it is outside the EU. However, if it was making the wings in Belfast, it would be in the EU. There is an opportunity there to target GB firms. That is one issue.

Regarding labour mobility, I published a study with Sean Lyons of the ESRI in 2019 which looked at commuting across the Border. There is much less commuting than one would expect. We would expect commuting in both directions, with more commuting from the Republic into Northern Ireland despite the fact that wages are higher here. In particular, there is very little from what we call district electoral divisions - I have forgotten what they are called in the North - where there is a predominantly unionist population. There is an unwillingness to move on the island. There was a story in The Irish Times last week about consultants moving to the Republic because they are paid twice as much in the Republic as they are in Northern Ireland, which is not a desirable outcome for Northern Ireland.

Another aspect of mobility is the immigration into Ireland, which has been huge over the past 20 years. It has predominantly been graduates. I accept there is all this excitement about asylum seekers and so on but they are a minority compared with the graduates. We have run out of graduates from the EU and the United Kingdom. There is more immigration from the US into Ireland than from Ireland to the US at this stage. We are now increasingly seeing them coming from India. Among the best qualified group in Ireland are Indians. However, there are visa issues. Indians on a visa working for a firm in Northern Ireland is not permitted to enter this jurisdiction unless they also have an Irish visa. My son-in-law had a complicated visa status in the US and he did not want to go to Donegal because he would have to drive through Northern Ireland and he did not have a British visa.

There are complications with the labour market. Labour mobility is really important. When Intel was setting up in this jurisdiction in 1990, it had two concerns: availability of electricity and water - it was convinced on that; and it wanted more electrical engineers than there were throughout this island. The IDA did a survey of Irish emigrants and persuaded Intel that enough Irish people would come back from abroad and work for Intel. The last time I was down in Intel I found that all of the top management are Irish but none of them were recruited in Ireland; they had worked abroad. The ability to attract them to come back was crucial.

The corporation tax affects US FDI but not the rest. It is of no benefit to a German or French company. The labour, skills and infrastructure here are what attracts such companies. Professor Morgenroth talked about the infrastructure. I know Northern Ireland has major problems in providing services. It needs to save and devote more to investment in infrastructure because that represents the future.