Mr. Martin Shanahan:

On the Senator’s first point about the attractiveness of locations, when investors are considering investment or are considering expanding on their investment, it is hugely important to them. We refer to this as place-making. Place-making is about everything that happens in a location. It is not just about what happens in an industrial park or a business and technology park from Monday to Friday. It is also about what is available downtown on a Saturday night or on a Sunday. It is the entire offering of a region. It is one of the reasons that we work with local authorities to try to ensure that the overall development plan is supportive of foreign direct investment. Largely, what will be positive from a foreign direct investment’s perspective will also be important from an indigenous company’s investment perspective.

The Senator is also correct in his point that it is about more than just salary for employees. It is about many other things, including a company’s values and their corporate social responsibility, CSR, commitments. Many of the companies with which we are involved with have significant CSR programmes, in addition to the other things that they do. Therefore, all those things will be important. Flexibility from companies going forward will also be important and employees will be looking to that. Having all the resources within the region working to make it an attractive place for people to live is the first objective. This is because if people will live there and are happy to move there, it means there will be much more chance of us getting an investment.

On the road infrastructure question, I will again point out that the IDA is not responsible for road infrastructure.

We are not responsible for the policy, nor are we the agency responsible for individual execution on it. That is Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII. In relation to the Senator's question, it is clear that if we can shrink the size of the country and of regions through good connectivity, including both road and public transport, it absolutely makes it easier for us to win investment. Anything that improves access to strategic sites and business technology sites, anything that shortens commuting distances, opens up access to larger urban areas and connects them is clearly positive from an investment perspective.