Mr. Ian Talbot:

Across our nationwide network, we have the entire mosaic. We represent businesses geographically, which brings its own issues at times because we have such a range of things that we might have to be able to talk about. The vulnerability we have is very much why, as Ms Burke said, we are focused on the investment in infrastructure and skills. Also, I cannot say often enough that it is about the ability to finance businesses, that is, growing businesses that can finance themselves in Ireland and be taxed appropriately in Ireland. We find that too many small businesses get themselves off the ground and then realise that to scale up further, they have to migrate to another country. We need to keep those businesses and entrepreneurs in Ireland. Again, that is why we talk a lot about things like capital gains tax and the various share schemes as well as freeing up the €160 billion that we have on deposit in Ireland and getting that invested into Irish business to really scale them up.

In addition to the regional skills fora, ten chambers around the country are running Skillnet.

They are quite involved in generating the training programmes there. We also have the education and training boards. Most of our local chambers have relationships with those ETBs to drive the skills agenda locally. I also welcome a great initiative that the Dublin, Cork and Northern Ireland chambers are running to develop a profile of activities to get more and more cross-Border activity. The Senator is probably familiar with the engagement the Dundalk chamber has with Newry and Warrenpoint. Equally, Letterkenny and Derry work very closely together. They are all things we try to build on as a network in respect of infrastructure but also skills.