Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is accepted that, notwithstanding the very negative impacts of Brexit, one potential opportunity for Ireland was in the area of financial services, particularly relocation from the United Kingdom for companies which would wish to stay in the EU. I know the enterprise section of the programme for Government is very strong on the support of financial services. The Taoiseach will have noted the coverage in The Financial Timesrecently to the effect that Dublin will not attract as many jobs from the financial sector in London as it could because of the lack of infrastructure and regulatory capacity. That is a worrying comment on the attractiveness of Ireland in terms of financial services.

Nine months have passed since the Brexit result and we still have not addressed some of the concrete issues by which we could actually benefit from the EU in terms of making sure that we attract such business. The Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has complained about regulatory arbitrage and that other cities are being more aggressive in trying to win business and perhaps moving regulatory considerations to one side. The important point is, what does the Taoiseach intend to do to counteract this negative profiling of our capacity to attract further financial services into the country because of the infrastructure and regulatory capacity issues?

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