Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

Ireland continues to be one of the most attractive places in the world as a location for global business. With our highly educated, skilled and adaptable workforce, our strong focus on research and development and knowledge, and our can-do, responsive and open attitude, we remain a location of choice. As a small open economy, Ireland welcomes the continued strong interest demonstrated by many of the world's leading companies in investing and expanding here. Ireland has transformed as an economy in recent years. We are well positioned to continue this transformation in the future. We are pro-business, pro-European and proud to be always to the forefront of the minds of global business leaders as they make critical investment decisions. Despite the economic turbulence being experienced, a reasonably strong investment pipeline, coupled with our positive reputation with some of the world's leading companies, leads us to be optimistic that we will continue to secure for Ireland the best in innovation and investments from around the globe.

As Members are aware, good macroeconomic and sound enterprise policies generate new, sustainable jobs and advance the standard of living of citizens. Against the background of what is undoubtedly a challenging global economic climate, I contend that the Government has in place the correct balance of policies and flexibility of approach to ensure that we continue to not only maintain the current high level of employment numbers, but also to generate new employment opportunities. In so doing, we will maintain the social and economic advantages that have been acquired for this country during the past decade.

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