Ms Mary Buckley:

That has happened before with other presidents in respect of repatriating taxes etc. We have an OECD proposal now and we have agreed that we will move to a 15% tax rate. We have been engaging with our clients on that over the past 14 or 15 months. While they would always like to retain the 12.5% rate, they absolutely understand the way the environment is changing globally so they have bought into the new 15% tax rate, which, obviously, has not been implemented yet. All of that is working its way through.

The other point to make about our move to the OECD model - and I do not wish to repeat myself or to talk about this too much - is that last year we won 249 new investments. We ended up at the end of the year with 275,000 people employed in 1,700 companies.

The first half of this year has again seen strong growth and this has come on the back of the new and changing tax environment. There have been 155 investments and a commitment to 18,000 jobs. Underpinning this are 73 investments from brand-new companies without any experience of Ireland, and 73 of these have gone into regional locations as well. When we look at all this and the global tax environment and how it is changing, we are seeing clients still considering Ireland as a resilient and stable base in which to invest. For many companies, having a base in Europe is critical. They must have operations, regardless of what happens, in other parts of the globe and this makes Ireland attractive because of its strong EU membership, as well as in several other areas.