Mr. Ian Brannigan:

I will address Senator Naughton's question first. As I said earlier, we did cover one of the aspects of why we are pushing forward the creative economy regionally as well as nationally. The narrative is that there are people there who attract jobs because of their creative ability. They are in the region for their own choice so they will not go elsewhere. That is a great example of what the WDC and regional development do. We are not interested in dividing up some sort of pie. We are genuinely interested in the national well-being. That is why we want to find sectors where we have international competitiveness. The dumb question is, do we want to be internationally competitive as a country? If so, we have to pick our strengths. Renewable energy is a great example because we are not going to put up 1,000 turbines anywhere to generate gigawatts. It thus becomes a question that if one chooses to do so, one chooses to do it in certain areas where there are good natural resources. In the creative economy we have a strong international sector. This is not balanced regional development, it is sensible economic development. That is a really important thing to understand. I would not be qualified to discuss another aspect.

The clustering effect has to happen, rather than it being forced. Michael Porter's strategy is great but I worked it for 15 years and one must spend an awful lot of money to make it happen. There are natural places in rural areas which allow agglomeration effects for clusters, that is, where people can go to meet. That is important.

With the committee's permission, I will spend a second on Galway's bid to be Capital of Culture. It is a wonderful idea. Our region benefits from having one of the most exciting micro-cities in the world. It can only benefit the national cause to have such a bid. I saw the Volvo Ocean Race there and they still rant about the welcome they received and what it did for Ireland. That is exactly the effect we would always like to see from a City of Culture bid.