Mr. John Hughes:

The thresholds we are proposing are simply aligning with what is in the existing legislation. This would be for fixed assets, for research, development and innovation, for training and so on. The technology acquisition grant was clearly out of date, so we have aligned it with the others. The general threshold under which grants have to be approved by Government, in some categories €7.5 million and in others they aggregate €15 million, continues. This will continue to obtain, including under the new headings. There will continue to be oversight. Each grant that goes to Government for the larger sums or is managed by the IDA itself under the legislation will always have, on a case-by-case basis, performance criteria and various elements built in to the individual contracts between the IDA and the parent company globally, at which repayment would arise if the agreed targets were not achieved. Equally on decarbonisation, sustainability and digitalisation, there will be agreed targets at which the IDA is giving some financial assistance - it is never 100% - against which performance would be assessed, including timelines for achieving those targets.