Mr. Aidan Sweeney:

The business case for this has substantially changed from a decade ago, when we originally signed up to the UPC agreement. A large factor is Brexit. Looking at the data and evidence, there has been a significant gain for Ireland from Brexit in this area. We have modelled the patent-intensive sectors in the country, including life sciences, medical devices and technology. That is where our enterprise policy has brought the country. Our economy has built a model of substance over time. We are looking at the location impact on those sectors. As Mr. Gaffney said, the Deputy referred to the timeliness of this. Much of the activity in the UK was non-EU foreign direct investment in life sciences, medical devices and so on. Those companies are located here. The idea is that bringing these activities here closes the loop on the end-to-end business services, IP and innovation, legal services and so on across different corporate functions. Locating a function like this here brings jobs and wider investment.

We have looked at similar models in terms of not just the courts system but the effects of, for example, moving the European Medicines Agency to Amsterdam. That is why we arrived at those figures of between 1% and 4% as the assumed growth in those activities in addition to those patent-intensive sectors. That is how we arrived at those figures.