Mr. Paul Sweetman:

A number of things will fall into competitiveness. We tend to focus on what is working very well that we have to maintain and what is something that we have to correct. In the very positive bucket, we tend to focus on talent and skills. Ireland has a very strong reputation for productivity and availability of talents and skills. What we constantly push with Government and policymakers is that we need to maintain that pipeline as powerfully as possible. We also talk about the ease of doing business. The ability for companies to engage with the political system and the Civil Service system is very powerful in Ireland. People like the stability that comes from Ireland in terms of the investments they may make. That is in the very positive bucket and there are a number of others on that side.

In terms of challenges, we tend to talk, on the competitiveness side, of infrastructural challenges. These break down into energy, water, public infrastructure, etc.