Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Ireland's Skills Needs: Discussion (Resumed)

4:00 pm

Mr. Kevin Daly:

Yes. Regarding the Deputy's question about Brexit, the impact on skills and the interaction with the UK, I was quite surprised to see from the statistics released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office, CSO, that the full-time average wage in Ireland is 39% higher than that in UK. The functioning of the market should solve that issue in that people will go to where there are the highest wages. That is my view as an economist. We have not heard from the firms we have talked to about an issue with losing labour to the UK yet, although Brexit has not happened yet. Initially, we thought we might have an upside from Brexit in that European migrants who might have gone to the UK would come here instead, but that is anecdotal and we have not seen evidence of it.