Dr. Tom McDonnell:

Absolutely. If they believe that this is effectively a permanent thing, they will reshore at that point. They do not know at the moment. Europe, Ireland and politicians need to convince them that this is not forever. If it forever and if it takes five years to ten years to build one out, they will do that. They only care about what will maximise their profits in the long term. They would not be in Ireland if they cared about in America. If they do not care about America, they certainly do not care about Ireland. They are here to make profits. That is the reality. That would be a shock of a different order. That would be the genuine game changer for the Irish model, which is why we need to be thinking about five, ten and 20 years' time and how do we build up the domestic enterprise base.

It is about having a stronger innovation system. It is about dealing with infrastructure problems. It is about controlling matters and making no-regrets moves. What are those moves? Infrastructure is never a move that we regret. The authorities in Spain are still glad they have all of the infrastructure that they built in the 2000s. Spending on research and development, adult education, public childcare are no-regret moves that we should be doing anyway. In many ways, we can say that we cannot control what happens in American politics. We can still gain things through the corporation tax system, but no matter what happens, we ought to be doing all of these things anyway. Education, research and development, infrastructure and childcare are all areas in which we should be doing things doing anyway.