Mr. Arnold Dillon:

In my address, I did focus overwhelmingly on the negatives. IBEC is also looking at the potential upside of this and exploring some of the opportunities which may well exist.

An obvious one, which has received quite a significant bit of attention, is the potential in the financial services area because of the question mark which hangs over the ability of UK-based financial services companies to operate in a post-Brexit scenario due to issues around passporting. It was encouraging to hear IDA Ireland state its offices around the globe are incredibly busy with queries in that regard.

IBEC's financial sector side is actively involved in working with companies based in Dublin and throughout the country, as well as dealing with queries from UK-based companies with no operations in Ireland which are exploring the sort of options which may present to them if real risks crystallise in the UK around financial services. On a broader level, there is an offering that Ireland has post-Brexit in that it is an English-speaking, common law country with established links with, for example, the US and foreign direct investment. There are new opportunities and IBEC is working with the various agencies to promote those in so far as is possible.