Ms Patricia King:

We have acknowledged in all of our documentation that this country will receive jobs. It will receive jobs, probably, mainly, in the financial services sector and, possibly, some in the high tech sector. We expect that in the main these jobs will be in the financial services sector. Our judgment is that the companies concerned will locate, in the main, in one or two areas, possibly Dublin and Cork. There is reason to believe that those jobs will be what we would determine as commuter jobs in that people will work in Dublin Monday to Friday and return home to the UK at weekends and so on. Child care services and housing infrastructure around the Dublin area is so bad that there are issues around whether all of the jobs that could transpire will do so. That is another matter. The jobs in the financial services sector will be, most likely, at the high paid end of the business. In terms of mobility, the jobs that move are the bonus related positions and so on. The high tech jobs are also more likely to be in at the higher end of the payscale.

The agrifood sector is regionally based. As members will be aware, it is closely linked to the live supply from agriculture, such that a definitive characteristic of this will be how that will be dealt with. I am not sure that farmers will be as badly affected because they have a much broader export market than the UK. In the last number of years, they have been diversifying a lot. In terms of retail, Ireland imports a considerable amount from the UK and this causes significant job creation here. Any impediment or turbulence in the market could affect that.

It is going to take longer for all of this to happen, but within a period of five to seven years, unless this is managed very tightly there is a strong possibility of a huge job loss scenario. We need to find a way through the EU negotiations to deal with this. The State agencies, particularly Enterprise Ireland, have been advising on transitionary circumstances and how to diversify. They do not believe that funding is of any use in this regard. We need to teach people how to diversify and to get companies to diversify their markets. Diversifying markets takes time. What does one do in the interregnum? What happens to the jobs? I am happy to say that a huge amount of the jobs about which we are speaking today are jobs, collectively bargained, and with decent enough rates of pay and conditions. It is a matter of grave concern for the trade union movement that this area be monitored.