James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps we can talk about export credit insurance on the second round.

I acknowledge the Minister of State's and the Government’s support for the MERITS hub, along with others around the country. It is a particularly strong centre. It is quite a new development and received very strong support from Kildare County Council when it was launched. I want to credit Joe O’Carroll and all of the team who run the operation there. I visited it myself on a number of occasions when it was getting going. Now that is up and running and post Covid, there is a huge opportunity given that more people will work outside of the large towns and cities. These kinds of co-working innovation centres are even more important now than they ever were. I thank the Minister of State and the Government for their commitment to that. As the House is aware the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, visited not long ago. As I said, there is a great team at work there and it is a model that could be replicated elsewhere.

In his second response, the Minister of State might take the opportunity to update us on the export credit insurance scheme.

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