Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I was with Mr. O'Hara yesterday at the announcement of a significant investment by Intel in a new digital health research project, the first of its kind by Intel outside the United States. This indicates the attraction of Ireland as a location for high-end research and development in areas that represent core strategic objectives of companies of the calibre of Intel. The project involves three major Irish universities, Trinity, UCD and UCG. In many ways we know that our cost base has increased and economic growth and development have had an impact on the overall cost base of the economy. That is why we must move higher up the value chain and further into the research and development space and upskill the population. The type of investment we announced yesterday with Intel will act as a further reference point to attract a similar type of high quality investment from companies of that calibre.

Last year approximately 80,000 extra jobs were created in the economy and 20,000 were lost through redundancies. We managed to win significant investments from companies such as Google, Amgen, Centocor, Servier, a French pharmaceutical company, financial services, Northern Trust and, last Monday week in Dundalk, Daiwa, a Japanese financial services company. We are concentrating on trying to win the technologies of tomorrow for Ireland and the companies that are developing them, which are high in manufacturing, services and particularly engineering, medical devices and financial services.

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