Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

It is important that we grow our global footprint. Through the action plan on market diversification, we can see where we are looking to take advantage of those 41 free trade agreements the EU has with 72 countries. The IDA is working to expand its remit, as well as Enterprise Ireland. We can see that taking place in South Korea and the Asia-Pacific region, which is very important. About 50% of the world’s population is in the Asia-Pacific region, it has two thirds of the world’s growth and it is an important market that Ireland is active in. It will be seen through that strategy that life and resources are going in to follow, which will be very important.

In relation to the bigger question of our indigenous economy and corporate tax, first, people would say it is incredible to see that some of those companies bringing in that tax have been in Ireland for 60, 70 or 80 years. They have a long-standing relationship with our economy. Second, they are also very much linked into the ecosystem. It strikes me, if we look at some of the big semiconductor companies and their rosters of supply chain management, that there are 700, 800 and 900 SMEs linked into some of them. They are providing services from Banagher Precast Concrete to Kiernan Structural Steel in Longford. They are very much part of those supply chains.

I was also very struck one day when I was down in Ballinasloe with a small printing company. The managing director of that small family printing company told me it provided the paper instructions that go with the bottles of each product a life science company down the road manufactured. This just shows how interlinked they are and how important it is that we do work with them.