Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

One interesting statistic on this issue is that in many rural areas 70% of young people go to university or third level and a very high percentage are going on to fourth level. In fact, the level is totally disproportionate compared to Dublin where, I understand, the average is approximately 40%.

They get jobs in companies such as Intel and in the IT and biotechnology sectors, and work in multinational companies or go abroad. They are as well-qualified in their own expert fields as anybody in the world. This cohort is a major resource. The downturn is very serious but there are always possibilities. One such possibility is that people from, for example, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry or wherever, who have been working very happily in a multinational at the top of the cutting edge will be made redundant, be given a lump sum and will then start thinking about their lives.

Why would one leave a job when one has a job? When people's lives change, they often start looking at the wider picture and might say to themselves, "I could do this on my own". They think perhaps they could set up a factory or industry and are as well-qualified as anybody else or all the employers they have had, and now that they have no employer, rather than sit at home they could set up a business. We must start seeing if there is a major pool of human resources, which we initially went abroad to look for and which may be available to us now, and see if the downturn has created a situation where there is resource under our eyes that we are not looking for.

I wish to clarify a number of issues for Senator Healy Eames.