Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

There have been and are instances throughout the country in which financial companies, perhaps having started in the Dublin area, have moved outside for a whole range of reasons, including the location of expertise elsewhere in the country, but also for good business reasons in terms of costs, property costs, etc. There have been instances where this has happened. The whole idea is to have a growing and expanding industry. It has maintained high levels of employment despite the obvious problems of recent years in the financial services.

Even in the Northern Ireland context, there have been opportunities to co-operate with the Northern Executive. When the present First Minister was its Minister for Finance and I had that position, we had an initiative in respect of the North-South development of financial services where certain activities in that industry could be competitively done there as against here while there are issues here that we can do that they cannot do. One makes the cake bigger and ensures one can co-locate jobs, not just within the Republic of Ireland, but North of the Border as well. So there have been instances.

We are all open to trying to identify opportunities in every part of the country for this type of well-remunerated employment. It is not in any way dismissive of it. It is a question of building, as the Deputy says, on what is there, but that does not preclude businesses where they see an opportunity from locating anywhere within the jurisdiction while at the same time taking the benefits that the IFSC provides in terms of the fiscal regimes, etc. This has been the case for some time now.

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