Ms Breda O'Sullivan:

I do not think we can underline enough how focused the IDA is on the regions. We are aiming to get 55% of all projects to the regions. We are very much in line with the national development plan with what we are doing with the building programme, the advance planning permissions and so on. We have an office in every region and they work with the local stakeholders to attract as much as we can into the regional locations. Over many years, all of our systems have been tipped towards the regions. Even in our economic model, companies get less benefit from the State if they locate in Dublin.

If they do research and development, things like congestion charges are included in the model. If they are doing it in Dublin versus the regions, the regional aid rate is obviously higher in the regions. You cannot give employment grants in Dublin. Right across the system, there is a rebalancing in all sorts of layers to encourage companies to go to regional locations but there will always be projects that will only locate in Dublin and if they do not come into Dublin, they will not come into the country. That is the other piece.