Dr. Orlaigh Quinn:

I will reply to the questions and perhaps my colleagues can add to my replies. As the Deputy said, there are a number of areas where we act as both partners and collaborates with other Departments but we do not necessarily hold the mandate. On the skills side, in particular, we provide the secretariat to the expert group on future skills needs, which reports regularly on the what skills are needed by our economy. I am a member of the national skills council chaired by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Richard Bruton. Again, the council facilitates prioritisation across needs. We have nine regional skills fora located across the country. My Department is very involved with and is represented on each of those fora.

My colleagues and I work very hard with our colleagues in the Department of Education and Skills to make sure that we identify important areas. We have a direct line, both ourselves and through our agencies, in terms of where skills are under pressure or under-resourced and we bring that expertise to the table. Let us consider the roll out of the skills for growth programme by the Department of Education and Skills. We would have been very involved in putting the spotlight on that work with our background.

Interestingly, when we attend trade missions or deal with companies, a lot of emphasis is placed on people having to the correct set of skills. We have found that there is only a shortage in a small number of sectors. We are working very hard to resolve such shortages. We conduct a lot of joined up work with institutes of technology through the Science Foundation Ireland and support and facilitate work in that area. I do not feel that there is a lack of joined up thinking in that area and believe we are doing well.

The Deputy mentioned work permits. My Department review work permits and identify critical skills twice a year using a formal process. We begin analysis by asking ourselves whether we can find the skills in Ireland and can we augment them. We have heavily invested in new skills in some of the colleges. Ireland will be the first country in the world to provide a masters course in artificial intelligence and we have new skills in digital aviation and right across the board. I am sure the Deputy will be aware that we recently opened up the work permit system for agricultural workers, which relates more to low paid work where there is a labour shortage. We are always very conscious of our own unemployed and inactive population, and that 18 million people are unemployed in the European Union. That is our first port of call when trying to replace skills.

More broadly on infrastructure, there are clear challenges in housing. There is a lot of policy in place and work coming on stream. In terms of our competitors for investment, we are conscious that we are very comparable with other countries or cities such as Luxembourg, Brussels and Frankfurt, which experience similar issues to Ireland. However, it is a challenge to the economy and we can feed in our elements and it is very important that we do so.

On the United Kingdom common travel area, CTA, people coming to work here will have to come within the CTA agreement and will not be competing as such. The issue is more in regard to citizens of the United Kingdom. We are getting quite a lot of interest from such people, in particular those in the research community who would like to come and work in Ireland, especially those with EU backgrounds who may no longer feel as welcome in the UK as was previously the case. It is an opportunity to strengthen our offering on the innovation and research sides.