Mr. Padraic McElwee:

On the job losses and the local enterprise offices, it is, probably, the nature of the cohort of clients that we deal with. The reality is we deal with early stage start-ups and not all of them will succeed. Some of that might be by choice in that people often get into business and decide it is not for them and they opt out. There are a lot of transient jobs as well. People might take a job with a local firm for a year or two but then decide to move on. We focus so much on the net job position because that gives us a true test of the stickiness of those jobs. I should also make the point that we transferred 114 companies to Enterprise Ireland, which included approximately 825 jobs. That is a number that would not be reflected in our numbers this year. They are our high-growth companies.

On the export side, the Deputy is correct that among smaller businesses in particular there tends to be an understandable focus on the UK market. That makes sense. It is easy. Culturally we are fairly similar and it is an English-speaking country. We are working very closely with Enterprise Ireland particularly in regard to the more advanced ambitious companies to broaden their knowledge of the wider European market.

That will be a work in progress. I see that as a significant opportunity for many small businesses in Ireland. In a way, Covid has opened their eyes to opportunities because they took the time to step back. We will work very closely with Mr. Clancy and his teams around the country to achieve that objective.