Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh, agus comhghairdeas leat. Like others I am very much looking forward to the work of the committee. In my previous post before I became a Senator, I was economy minister north of the Border. I had a very good working relationship with the Minister, Deputy Burke, in that regard and look forward to continuing to work with him. As others have pointed out, this is an interesting time for this committee and for a broader look at economic policy.

The developments due to the approach of the United States Administration probably expose to a greater extent the vulnerability that has always been in the economic model here, in the sense of an overreliance on American investment and the jobs that flow from that. There is the opportunity for the committee to go into more of a deep dive as to how the economy should protect itself into the future, given that we have, as others have outlined, been in very turbulent times going back to the pandemic right through to the present. It is a good opportunity to look at the economic model and how we get more diversity, more indigenous businesses up to the level they need to be and less reliance on US investment in particular and the tax revenue it generates. It is obviously very welcome but it is also very vulnerable.

On tourism, I look forward to working with Tourism Ireland. It has been doing tremendous work across the island, but there are a number of challenges. One is the branding exercise, which we would love to see some advance on in terms of the Wild Atlantic Way, Ireland's Ancient East, Ireland's Hidden Heartlands and the programme of work going on there. There are also the challenges presented by the British Government's approach post Brexit of introducing an electronic travel authorisation, which has an impact on tourism on the island.

We will want to keep an eye on workers and workers' rights. Productivity and good jobs go hand in hand and if we want to improve productivity ,we must ensure that is done in collaboration with workers and not at their expense.

Those are a few things that will be of interest. I very much look forward to working with colleagues on the committee.