Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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39. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of UK-based financial services infrastructure providers that have been met by Irish officials; the number that have agreed to move all or part of their operations here; the number of jobs this entails; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16550/17]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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When it comes to jobs, Brexit is mainly about risk mitigation and protecting as many jobs as we can. As we all know, sectors such as agrifood, tourism, retail and manufacturing are under very serious threat. One area of potential opportunity is financial services, and maximising not just the number of jobs that come over but their sustainability and the total benefit to the sector requires a very strategic approach. This means we need to attract the full ecosystem of financial services. How many infrastructure companies in financial services have been engaged with by the State, how many have agreed to set up operations in Ireland and how many jobs will be associated with this?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Since the decision of the UK to leave the European Union, the contingency planning by international financial services firms has increased significantly given the uncertainty surrounding the eventual outcomes. This planning involves examining current business models and information gathering to assess the potential post-Brexit scenario. As part of this information gathering, many firms have been in contact with Government Departments and agencies and the Central Bank. These engagements with officials at home and abroad have involved firms engaged in a wide range of financial services activities. IDA Ireland, which leads our efforts to attract additional financial services in line with the IFS2020 strategy, has dealt with in excess of 100 queries from businesses about locating in Ireland.

In my role as Minister of State with responsibility for financial services, I have visited London, Asia, North America and other locations on a number of occasions. Furthermore, the second European Financial Forum, which I hosted, was held in Dublin Castle in January to showcase Ireland's offering to an international audience, and highlight the Government's commitment to the development of international financial services. An Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, provided the opening address. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, attended the closing sessions of the forum and gave the final remarks. In addition, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, gave the afternoon ministerial address.

Recently, St. Patrick's Day trade missions saw the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and 27 Ministers and Ministers of State take part in more than 100 business events and high-level political meetings in 27 countries. As part of this, I visited Canada and the Minister, Deputy Noonan, visited Malaysia and Singapore.

Once a relocation recommendation has been made by senior management in a firm, the Deputy will appreciate the board of the firm will have to agree the decision and, in due course, shareholders and current regulators will have to be informed before the actual decision can be made public. Until these steps have been completed, it is not possible for IDA Ireland or, indeed, myself to give any precise information on the potential movers post-Brexit.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State and I would both accept the question I asked did not get addressed. Ireland is an obvious location for financial services firms looking to set up in the EU. We have a common law system, we are English speaking, there are close cultural similarities and there is a big multinational presence here. More and more, the big firms are deciding not to come here. We see announcement after announcement that they are deciding to locate elsewhere in the EU.

This is partly because IDA Ireland has not been given sufficient resources. It has been given nine extra people. To put that into perspective, The Guardiannewspaper has a Brexit team of nine people. It is partly because we are missing some of the key skill-sets. We should be hiring people who are senior financial services players in the UK for a year or two years to come here and help us with this. It is partly because we lack a strategic approach. I ask the Minister of State, specifically on the numbers, what interaction there has been with the financial services companies in the UK, mainly based out of London, that specialise in providing financial services infrastructure to the market.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Financial services infrastructure is a very important part of this piece in terms of future-proofing our Irish financial services, IFS, offering, as the Deputy points out. When we look at certain parts of infrastructure and the potential for it to relocate or establish itself here, there are only a few players in the market, so we cannot be precise about exactly what conversations we have had because it will potentially be quite clear which companies we have been talking to.

There are a number of different aspects to infrastructure. Are we talking about the technology and resources of particular entities or firms that are currently operating here? Are we talking about multilateral trading facilities, MTFs? Are we talking about central security depositories, CSDs, or central counterparties, CCPs? There were different elements to supports over the course of the last year. We have been engaging with different firms which are potentially looking at establishing a presence here or relocating a particular activity here. We are then talking to other companies that are not directly financial services companies themselves, but an element of their business is significant enough that they have a subsidiary that might be operating in a particular area, for example, for payments.

We have the IFS2020 strategy, which is a five-year strategy for increasing our international financial services offering. We worked with industry to develop that strategy. As a result of having that strategy in place since 2015, it meant we were ahead of the game in attracting financial services firms into Ireland to allow that continuity of service into the Single Market. Not every company that relocates out of the UK is going to come here. We have to be honest about this. There is going to be a flow to this. From the meetings I have already had and from the decisions that have already been taken by companies, there will be a strong flow to Ireland. It is up to the companies themselves to decide when they want to notify the public, their customers, their staff, shareholders and regulators in jurisdictions in which they are currently based. When they do that, then we will be in a position to comment publicly about that. Companies will be relocating here, but they will also relocate to other jurisdictions in Europe.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Here is the fear. The IFS strategy basically said that we are going to make two big plays. One is in financial technology, FinTech, and one in another place. Post-Brexit, it was taken back into the Department and it came back out Brexit-proofed. If the pre- and post-Brexit versions are compared, they are pretty much the same. It still says two plays, which is FinTech and another one, which escapes me. Brexit presents a big opportunity, which is now different, which is to say that we are not just going to try to get insurance companies, reinsurance companies, trading firms and so forth. There is a real opportunity to say that we can bring the entire ecosystem over to Dublin or wherever it sets up in Ireland. One of the reasons London is so strong is because it has the full ecosystem.

A core piece of this is the infrastructure. The fear from financial services players in Dublin is that we might bring some of these firms over, but because we do not create a sustainable infrastructure around them, in time they might move to Luxembourg, Frankfurt or elsewhere. The information I have from very well-placed people within the industry is that the infrastructure firms are not being approached by the State and need to be. The infrastructure firms are saying that they are being wined and dined by the French, the Belgians and the Spanish and by Luxembourg, and they are not seeing sight nor sound of the Irish. Nobody is saying that the Minister of State is not busy. We know he is busy. My sense is that we could be more strategic, more clever and have a strategy that encompasses the full ecosystem so that when we get these firms over here, they stay here and grow rather than relocating here temporarily.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We share the same ambition here. I like to think that all parties in this House share the same ambition when it comes to the potential opportunities that might come from Brexit. There is no point in being busy if it is not for a strategic objective. I have met with some infrastructure providers on a number of occasions. It is part of the strategy that we are developing to make sure that every opportunity that might come from Brexit is there and available to us to take advantage of. Companies will make relocation decisions based on a number of factors. We have heard we are coming in the top three of companies' potential relocation options across the board. They will pull a trigger for this jurisdiction, but they will also pull it for other jurisdictions and for other legacy reasons, for example. One big international bank has decided to go to Paris. It made sense because a legacy acquisition 12 years ago meant it already had the authorisation for its banking licencee. If one looks at the action plan for 2017 under the IFS2020 strategy, there are two component parts. The first component part is the Brexit narrative, talking about contingency planning, communications, the Central Bank piece in this and other areas like International Baccalaureate education and what we need to do. The second part is the 40 individual action points and how we are going to address them just in this year alone. There is the matter of IFS and how we plan to grow it for the year. Some points are very Brexit-related and some are less directly so.

No one individual ecosystem in international financial services is going to relocate to another jurisdiction. In insurance, for example, not all insurance companies are going to go to one place and it is good that they do not. It is good that they operate from different jurisdictions, in different markets into the Single Market when they can. The skill-set and having the people here are very important to us. That is why one of the pillars of those 40 action points in the IFS strategy for this year is looking at education, trading and skills development, and also attracting Irish emigrants back home into these high-level jobs that are being created, not just in Dublin but also Cork and other parts of the country.