Conor Murphy (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McDonnell for the presentation. Apologies for missing a substantial chunk in the middle of the questions and answers. I will ask a couple of questions and apologies if they have already been asked and answered.

Referring back to the last paragraph of the contribution where it talks about the future, there has been much discussion about what immediate action to take in relation to tariffs, how Europe might respond and where that might take us. We have been through a whole series of economic shocks, arguably going back to 2007 and 2008 and right through Brexit, the pandemic, the Ukraine war and now the prospect of a volatile American Administration. Increasingly, the vulnerability of the Irish economy to all of that has been talked about and exposed, perhaps no more so than in this latest economic shock. That is where all the American vulnerability is exposed. Clearly, that has been very beneficial for the Irish economy and for growth but, as Dr. McDonnell said, the model is going to have to evolve if it is going to endure future shocks, arguably not in the next generation because these things come along like buses, much more quickly than expected. We need to evolve fairly quickly. There is an acceptance that the economy is too narrow in terms of sector, region and and the international aspect, and we have become very heavily reliant on that. There is a need for diversification and, as Dr. McDonnell offered, in terms of different trade routes in the global south and other parts of the world but also diversification of the areas in which we work.

Dr. McDonnell could write another full paper on the next chapter of all this. There is actually more of an urgency to this because this trade stuff with Trump could go any way. Who knows who will come behind him and what the approach will be? We always think this is the worst we have ever dealt with, until the next one comes along. This type of uncertainty is not going away any time soon. Therefore, the need to insulate the economy as well as we can becomes even more imperative. Does Dr. McDonnell have any thoughts on how that can be done in the short to medium term?