John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)

I thank everyone for coming in today. I will pick up on this, maybe because I am a Government TD, but a lot of the asks in the witnesses' opening statements in relation to infrastructure and supporting businesses and protecting jobs into the future are what the fingerprints of this budget are all about, and that has to be acknowledged.

In terms of going forward, we have a workforce of 2.8 million right now, and our next objective is to try to grow those jobs further. Do the witnesses see the majority of that growth coming from new companies or existing companies building their workforce further? I am bearing in mind the challenge or opportunity, whichever way you want to look at it, of AI being taken into consideration in that regard.