Mr. Ian Talbot:

First, on the urgency of doing something, we consider any opportunities there should be implemented urgently anyway. We certainly take the point. In a former life of mine, I worked in Waterford Glass for a couple of years, and I know an awful lot about the organisation, its great heritage, etc. I was there in 1988-89. The workers with the skills who were there at the time have well retired now. There is an opportunity going to waste there.

We should also not lose sight of the fact that, for example, in the area of training, we still have what was the vexed question of the National Training Fund. I believe in the budget there is some element of opening it up but there is €1.5 billion available for training. Money and resources probably are not an object there. We take the view in the training area that if the money is available, the skills to train will become available too. Potentially, there is a role for Skillnet to play as well here too.

There are so many reasons to say that this is a great idea; it is an absolute shot to nothing and why would we not do this.