Mr. Micheál O'Connor:

To answer the Deputy's initial question about overseas and what other things we see, with the clients we deal with, it is about certainty overseas in comparison to Ireland. The FDI sector has underpinned the Irish economy for decades. One of the things we are really good at here is giving them certainty around delivery and planning. Over the last ten years, I do not think we have been able to give them that certainty to the same degree that we could previously. There is a bit of a question mark now about how quickly we can get them to planning or even whether we can get planning in certain sites.

Internationally, the other factor is energy. Ireland is on a competitive stage with other countries in terms of attracting these companies to our shores. Unfortunately, we are losing that competitiveness and losing that industry to other parts of Europe where clients are satisfied that they can get through planning quickly and are satisfied there will be an energy supply there when they actually construct their plants. That is something we have to work on collectively.