Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McDonnell. It has been fascinating to listen to his contributions and responses to specific questions this evening. It has been extraordinarily interesting. A very exciting issue arose in his response to Deputy Burke when he talked about attracting high-calibre researchers from America. That is a fascinating concept. The results of that could be great. To take a minor diversion before I go back to my few questions, I have had a lot of extended family from America home recently and I am meeting a lot of American visitors here who are all saying they are contemplating relocating for a whole lot of reasons so there might well be great potential in that, based on anecdotal evidence. It is an interesting one but the entire evening has been interesting.

If I understand Dr. McDonnell correctly, the thrust of what he is saying on tariffs is that they will not dislocate existing investment in Ireland in any significant fashion and that they are not likely to move anything out of Ireland. That is the general conventional wisdom but they also may slow down what would otherwise potentially come in. Will he expand a bit on where he sees potential for replacement by indigenous economic activity? It is a bit scary when Dr. McDonnell speaks about drink and food being at risk because food production, processing and adding value to the product and exporting that new and improved product are very important to the region I come from.

Could Dr. McDonnell comment first please on where he sees us developing an alternative, including through green energy and AI? Could he give us some specifics, like the example about the academics?