Ambassador Bruton:

I must appeal to the Cathaoirleach to protect me from being drawn into politics, which I have been avoiding for the past two years. It is important to recognise that Ireland has 1% of the European population. However, in 1997 — to pluck a year from the air — it received 15% of all American investment coming into Europe. It is impossible to maintain such a rate forever because costs are naturally rising. This is inevitable because as demand increases, so do costs. However, the latest figures I have seen show that even in 2004, Ireland received 5% of all American investment coming into Europe, which constitutes a very good performance. Obviously, this share will come under increasing pressure. While some reasons for this were mentioned by the Senator, another reason is that when we began to attract American investment, large areas of the world were closed to it. These areas are now open. China, India and Russia are all open to US investment. Countries which were not competing with us at all 15 years ago are now competing directly with us. This will clearly have an effect. If I were to make a comment about domestic politics, which I will not do, I would say that the crucial factor for us as Irish people is to use the savings we have for productive investment to ensure our savings are used to create employment for our children and grandchildren, directly or indirectly. This will create recurring wealth rather than one-off asset improvement.

Ambassador Bruton:

How does one structure an incentive system to ensure that instead of putting his or her savings in a house in Spain, a person puts them in a business that will create employment somewhere in Ireland? How does one make such an option more attractive? The idea that we can go on importing capital and ideas from outside the country forever is not viable. We have benefited enormously from it in the past but we are now reaching the point in Ireland where we must find ways of using our resources more productively. This was what I attempted to say in my speech without getting into any problems with the Cathaoirleach.