Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

The ESRI has published evaluations of the potential impacts of various tariff regimes on growth in the Irish economy. It has used GNI and GDP metrics. Much depends on the scale of the tariffs. I have spoken to a significant number of CEOs in the pharmaceutical and medical technology sectors and they are concerned. President Trump has said that he wants to get manufacturing back to the United States. Most of the CEOs I have spoken to do not believe that is feasible in physical terms, in a short time, anyway. The disruptive nature of this is significant also. The disruption in the supply chains could lead to shortages of medicines and so on. It is also very difficult because huge expertise has been built up over many decades in many of these plants. It could have a disruptive impact on the value of companies. If we take, for example, Apple products coming out of Taiwan or China, the impact on the price of an iPad or an iPhone would be dramatic if all of that production had to be discontinued and moved to the United States. It would make many of the products almost unaffordable. The models have been established over the past two or three decades, since globalisation. I do not think they can be easily changed. That kind of disruption will have a negative impact. This is why we have to concentrate on what we can control regarding competitiveness in Ireland and in the European Union. One of the most effective things we can do is to invest in infrastructure. We are behind in this regard so we need to invest more.