Good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to welcome you to this IIEA webinar on the role of foreign direct investment in the Irish economy co-organized with the OECD and IDA Ireland. The event today marks the launch of the OECD's FDI Qualities Assessment of Ireland report, which looks at the impact of foreign investment over a 10 year time horizon starting in 2006. The report, which does not include the pandemic period, was used as input into the formulation of the IDA's latest four year strategy, which was published earlier this month. For your convenience, a link to the OECD report has been emailed to you all in the past half an hour. During today's event, Martin Shannon, who is CEO of IDA Ireland and Anna Novik, head of the investment decision of the director for financial enterprise affairs at the OECD will open proceedings. Then Martin Vermalinger, who is project manager and economist of the OECD investment decision will present the findings of the report. Following that, you'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see your screen. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you and we will come to them once the panelists have finished their presentations. A reminder that today's presentations and Q&A are both on the right record. So with that, welcome Martin Shannon and over to you. Thanks Dan, to you and Michael and the team at IEA for hosting us today. Welcome to our OECD colleagues, Anna and Martin, whom I'm very much looking forward to listening to and thank them of course for their work on this report. Thanks also to my IDA colleagues, particularly Kieran Dunahoo and Niamh Radhi for their input into this report being launched today and of course in helping to organize today's event. The IDA commissioned this report as one of the inputs to inform our new strategy, which we launched on the 6th of January. I think that it's important that we continue to hold a mirror up to ourselves and gain a detailed understanding of what is happening within our client base. That's not always as easy as it seems and I think as our colleagues from the OECD will attest as typically one is firstly looking backwards. The data set of necessity that the OECD used predates the COVID pandemic and indeed much of our recent strategy. And of course our international data sets are limited, but I believe that the OECD have done an excellent job. They have reaffirmed some of the things that we already knew and provided much greater insight into what's happening within the client portfolio. One of the things that the study has reaffirmed include that Ireland is one of the most open economies in the world and that the FDI base of companies deeply integrates Ireland's economy into global value chains. The report shows that IDA support to firms are concentrated in sectors that exhibited rapid growth and are associated with higher productivity or indeed expenditure and wages and salaries. Where I think from previous work by the CSO OECD ESRI and indeed the national competitiveness and productivity council that there is a significant and growing productivity gap between FDI in Ireland and domestic firms in Ireland. This new research also shows I think the range within the IDA portfolio and between productivity frontier companies and other companies that operate in Ireland. I think the report shows that FDI in Ireland is resilient while the analysis predates COVID-19 as you mentioned in your intro. It shows that FDI was a key for Ireland to recover from another big economic crisis, the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. And while it is, I think too early to say what will happen post COVID, we already know from the idea results for 2020 that sectors in which IDA supported firms are concentrated exhibited remarkable resilience during 2020, particularly in areas like pharmaceuticals, IT, medical technologies, international financial services. In 2020, 20,000 new jobs were created within the portfolio. And when you net out losses, we saw employment in the portfolio grow by close to 9,000 jobs, which I think is a remarkable performance by companies in a year where they were dealing with a global pandemic. The report rightly points to concentration risk, both in terms of sectors, the origins of the FDI that are here and regional dispersion. I think there are Firstly, if you're, if you're going to be concentrated is better to be concentrated in the most highly productive resilient sectors that we believe underpin a modern economy. And I believe that's where we are. And we also have to acknowledge that given our geographic location, the size of our market, the availability of raw materials, there are limitations on what sectors we can compete in. That does not detract from the macroeconomic concentration risk, but makes it all the more important that we continue to do the right things from a policy perspective, and to be successful in those sectors. It also means that we have to focus on diversifying within those sectors. And that is why you will see areas like cybersecurity, AT&Ps connected in autonomous vehicles to mention, but a few identified in the new strategy as areas that we will focus on. Secondly, the issue of diversification featured heavily in IDA strategy from 2015 to 2019. And I believe that the data from that time period will show that we have made progress on diversification of source markets. From 2015 to 2019 our focus on Europe and Asia pack has seen the North American share decline, although it increased slightly again actually in the past year due to our focus on the existing client base which as we know is dominated by US companies. Thirdly, IDA has been completely focused on winning regional investments since 2014. I think we've made good progress on that front. All targets in the last strategy were surpassed with increases in all regions outside of Dublin of over 30%. 67,000 new jobs were created growth within the portfolio and leading to 37,500 net increase over the past six years. So a real focus obviously on the regions in the past strategy. And that continued focus will be central to our new strategy as well as was set out. IDA launched that new strategy which runs from 2021 to 24 at the beginning of January. It builds around five interlinked pillars of growth transformation, region sustainability and impact. And the findings of this report you will see intertwined in those strategic responses and underpinning those. IDA will continue to diversify its source markets. We will continue to seek to drive regional investment in line with the national planning framework. Despite the obvious challenges which are pointed out by the OECD in this report that we have only one international city of scale at Dublin. We will work with our clients to help them drive productivity. And again, Martin goes through his presentation later you'll see the obvious need for that. And we will do that through investment in R&D, digitization, industry 4.0 initiatives. And we're clear that COVID has hastened the technological tsunami that was heading at us in any event and which has made it all the more important stuff we respond. And this is an issue for many clients within our portfolio. And we know that it is the most productive firms that survive and again I think Martin's work underlines that so again important that we undertake those initiatives. We will also work with other agencies and particularly Enterprise Ireland to build clustering opportunities to accelerate the spillover effects from FDI to SMEs. And the report today obviously comments on the spillover effects that are happening within the Irish environment. We will support companies in their sustainability efforts in the widest possible sense aligned to the UN sustainability goals, and specifically within that we have a focus on the green economy and carbon reduction. Important in the midst of this is that we don't lose sight of suppose of the key high level objective of growing foreign direct investment for the benefit of the people of Ireland. Ireland has never been so evident as it has been in the past year. Ireland is heavily heavily dependent on FDI in terms of high quality and private exports and the economic contribution to the Exchequer. And with some of the numbers in that regard and they're over, there's over 25 billion in FDI expenditure in the economy on payroll Irish materials and services as a result of foreign direct investment. In addition, annual capital expenditure when all nationals has averaged between around five and seven billion over the last number of years and in 2019 was 7.2 billion. And my as we know has had a significant impact on the national accounts in terms of corporation tax paid with over 70% coming from multinational companies. I think importantly this contribution continues during the course of 2020 and much needed obviously, and similarly with income tax paid by those employed in the multinational sector has proved very resilient over the past year. And of all exports that leave the country come from FDI and of course there are 257,000 people now employed directly in multinational is not to mention the indirect employment stuff and comes from there. So given the cost of covert and with unemployment hovering around 20% FDI is for all will be crucial. I'll hand back to you down. Many thanks Martin. Anna the floor is yours. Thanks Dan and thanks also the Institute for International European Affairs for hosting this launch. In another occasion we will be all in Ireland but in this occasion we are in beer for I also wants to thanks you Martin and all your agency because it's true, it's true that this launch of the quality assessment of Ireland is thanks to this partnership that we have built in this in this collaboration. And the record is taking place in a very special moment the global foreign direct investment has slowed down significantly significantly we don't already that dropping more by probably 40% at the end of the year we are calculating the last numbers. The COVID pandemic is still a public health emergency and uncertainty will likely affect international investment, also in 2021. On the other hand, countries are already taking significant steps to speed up the recovery and FBI can play an important role, and I think that this is the reason of the strategy that Martin mentioned. In this context, the launch of the record is timing, because better understanding the contribution of FBI in Ireland is key to strengthen the role of international investment for an inclusive and sustainable recovery. Today the report examines the impact of foreign direct investment attracted to Ireland over the period of 2006 16, as was mentioned by Dan, and provides an overview of the direct contribution as to the lower effect of this investment on the local economy. The report includes four chapters, Martin will go through them, but the first one is about FBI in Ireland, trade and global value chain integration, the second is about FBI productivity and labor market outcomes. The third is about multinational productivity dynamics, and the fourth is about factor driving his beloved from the FBI in Ireland. Among small open economies, Ireland has near top of class over the past four decades in terms of attracting FBI. Ireland multinational sector has gone from strength to strength, helping underpinned economies take off in the 90s, cushioning the blow of the economy crashing 2008 and supporting its rapid recovery over the past decade and ensuring remarkable resilience. During this COVID-19 period. However, echoing some of the concert flag in the also 2020 OECD economic survey of Ireland, there is a large productivity gap between foreign known and local owned firm in the Irish economy with foreign firm in key sector like chemical computer, electronic and optical products sourcing less than 10% of their material domestically. We will see that emerge also from the OECD report that we are launching today more can be done to increase background linkage and enable positive spillover. The report has been jointly developed by the OECD and IDA Ireland and builds on OECD work under the FDA quality initiative. A first year in group meeting was held in December 28, sorry, 2018, and the final report was submitted at the fall of 2018 we didn't, we were not able to launch it before because the COVID and also some of general election in Ireland. In this context, as Dan mentioned at the beginning the analysis predate the COVID-19 pandemic and does not take into account of the impact of this crisis on foreign investment in Ireland. Nevertheless, the report has provided important background research and analysis as input to the development of the IDA Ireland's new strategy which has been, as mentioned by Martin, launched recently and we are very, very impressed by this release strategy. We really believe that this focus on the areas which are the great important for the work undertaken under the investment promotion agency work stream on the OECD and it's as mentioned by Martin in the strategy when you presented is really tackle the topics that we also detected in the report as a key for the sustainable recovery. We are delighted to see that the result of the study have informed the new strategy. We're also pleased to see an explicit interest of the IDA Ireland in continuing engaging with us, particularly in the context of the FDA quality initiative, which aims to enhance the impact of FDI on inclusive and sustainable growth, and also in the context of the investment promotion agency network that we have in the OECD. We are currently following this FDA quality initiative in the second phase. In the second phase, the idea is to develop a quality policy toolkit in for cluster productivity and innovation, job and skill, gender and low carbon. And we are identifying the policy option and the institution and I think that the work that we've done in this report, it's a signal of a first seed of this kind of work because exactly we are trying to also link policies with institution and mixing institution that is something that we did here. We are also hosting the OECD investment promotion network in the OECD and IDA Ireland is part of our steering group member and upcoming topics are very similar to the one that Martin mentioned and part of the strategy, the idea of how to increase the impact of their productivity and sustainable development. That means that we are very glad to know that this is part of a strategy because we will also be make this issue as an important part of the IPA network in the OECD. Before closing this opening remark, allow me to science the team who work in this report. The report is a result of a fruitful collaboration between the OECD team. Maria Borja, Cecilia Caleandro, Leticia Montiari, Martin Wehrmeldinger and IDA Ireland team, Mia Mirodi, Tim Costello, Kiran Donike, chair of the steering committee. The work was also enabled thanks to Alexander Kravig who respond to our IPA network. I would like to thanks again the institute, Dan Yu and of course IDA for this good collaboration. Thanks for that Anna. So now in terms of presenting the substance of the report, Martin and Paris over to you. Thank you very much Dan for hosting the launch and for giving me the floor. Congratulations for such a progressive IDA strategy that you have put out here earlier in January, which is actually greatly aligned as Anna already mentioned with OECD's priorities on investment and sustainable development. I hope everyone on this call is actually keeping safe during the current challenging times, like fast rising COVID cases in Ireland earlier in January are really worrisome so I hope everyone is safe. I'm glad to present some of our key insights of our FDI quality assessment of Ireland, which is not an easy task in just 15 minutes given the many findings that have been put together by the team in joint effort with IDA. Next slide please. So this report is framed on our still young but growing FDI qualities initiative, which aims to measure FDI impacts on the SDG outcomes and as Anna mentioned before we are now moving this agenda on FDI qualities, more towards a policy agenda. So we're trying to develop an FDI qualities policy toolkit over the next three years with guidance on policy and institutional arrangements to maximize FDI impact and we're looking forward to continue working with IDA on this matter. The report today is looking at the direct contribution of FDI as well as spillover potential of FDI on the Irish economy. And listening to Martin as to how our report supported the development of the IDA's new strategy and seeing the many references in the strategy document to this report and the qualities initiative is not only an honor for us but it also highlights from one of the most successful IPA in the world. How important evidence based policy discussions can actually be so thank you very much for this cooperation. Next slide please. Let me now upfront put out some of the key takeaways of the report and some of them have already been mentioned by both Martin and Anna. And I think the first one is really that it is no secret that the FDI has been a driver of growth in Ireland. It's important to highlight here that it does so including and particularly during very challenging times. Our analysis predates the ongoing pandemic as was mentioned, but it shows really that FDI was key for Ireland to recover from another big economic crisis, the Great Recession of 27 to nine. This is the first very important insight here. The second one is FDI in Ireland has been remarkably resilient during the current economic crisis, which of course supports also resilience of the wider economy in Ireland. The IDA results show that sectors in which IDA supported foreign firms are concentrated, exhibited remarkable resilience in 2020 and this includes medical goods, IT services just to mention a few. The third point is I think also fair to say that Ireland's FDI success story is really the result of IDA's targeted promotion efforts, but not only that it's also an existing coordination effort of IDA with other agencies such as the Science Foundation Ireland and an enterprise Ireland, as well as many supportive government policies and actions of other stakeholders including the investors themselves. So it's a joint effort. And we're really glad to read in the strategy that such cooperation and coordination efforts are going to be strengthened in the coming years, which is really a key recommendation that is coming out of our FDI qualities work and more than 35 OCD investing policy reviews undertaken so far. So coordination across agencies is very important. Next slide please. This slide you really have summary of the higher level conclusions of the report but let me now go through some of them in a bit more details in the following slides. Next slide please. The first big topic that we cover is the role of FDI for Ireland's globalization and integration in global value chains and next slide please. I think it's clear and Martin said it Ireland is one of the most open economies and its FDI base really deeply integrates Ireland's economy in global value chains. In this figure here, you can see three indicators basically one is export orientation of a country. Second one is the level of integration in global value chains. The third one is the presence of foreign multinational as a share of national GDP. And the first insight here is really that you see very clearly a positive relationship so you want to indicate it is high, the other two are high as well. There is some relationship. Second insight is really that you see Ireland is on the left here. It's on the, on the higher side if you want. So Ireland is first has really the highest share in domestic value that coming from foreign investors. The second highest export oriented country in the OECD and also Ireland is deeply integrated in GVC so this relationship comes out very clearly in this finding here. Next slide please. I would now like to highlight two additional key insights from our work in GVC is in Ireland. And I think the first one is related to the second bullet point here. We need to question about what is Ireland's comparative advantage. You may be familiar with with the smile curve concept of a value chain where you have pre production services on the left, which includes her research production design and development and post production services on the right, such as marketing distribution after sales and publishing, which generate a lot of value added in the value chain. By the product assembly, the physical production, which is a more standardized task, generates on average, less value added as a task. So we show in the report that FDI operations in Ireland, and the export success of Ireland is really positioned at the customer end of supply chains on the right in terms of value added post production services. And I think related to that is the fact and this is also something that Mark mentioned is a highly concentrated FDI in terms of its regions in terms of its sources in 2017, more than 70% of FDI came from the United States. So what does that mean. So many American investors in Ireland use Ireland as a location for production post production services to enter to European market of exports. Let me go to the next slide and the last finding, which is key in terms of the GBC integration, which relates to the profits profits make really a significant contribution of foreign affiliates value added in Ireland. And why is that important. And basically, just to mention like the yellow part here is showing ex profits value added in terms of profits that is exported out of Ireland. And it's important because profits of foreign investors they may not stay in Ireland, and thus the benefits of such value added being created in Ireland may not stay and so the value added is small in a way. So that's of course an important concern but we need to acknowledge that IDA is efforts here to retain investors and to make them expand operations in Ireland through reinvested earnings has been very successful. And again, I think it remains a top priority in the new strategy which we find appropriate and impressive. So let me go to the next topic the next slide please. This is very much on the direct impact of FDI on production on innovation and on employment outcomes. And, and let me focus on, on this graph first, like the figure shows very impressively that in Ireland for firms accounted for 60% of value added in 2015. That's the highest in the European Union. And actually the share of employment at around 18% is much lower and many EU countries that share is also lower. So what does that tell us. It's not negative that the employment is lower because it does still generate a lot of employment, but what it does really show is that in Ireland, foreign firms are operating at the highest level of productivity in Europe, and, and we can also show in our analysis that labor productivity growth of foreign firms has been impressive at about 11% annually over the study period. This is more largely driven by key sectors like information and communication, manufacturing finance and insurance, and particularly manufacturing it's important to say again that that is driven by a shift from physical production, like away from physical production assembly, more towards services activities, as I have already mentioned before when I talked about comparative advantage. One point here is really regional concentration. I mean, I think it's fair to say that Dublin remains the FBI hub in Ireland. 40% of value added 40% of employment were generated. Of total foreign operations were generated in Dublin in 2016. But there are also the other 60%. And I think it's again fair to say that Ireland has, IDA has been very successful to shift and enhance this 60% and bring more, more investments into the region in Ireland. And I think again, we think it's right to have that as an important priority in the new strategy as well. Next slide please. Now, just a few more facts on direct contributions. I mean, FTI really is concentrated in sectors that have higher productivity. They have also those in sectors that have higher business expenditures on R&D and also better employment outcomes. So employment growth in those sectors where FTI is concentrated is higher and wages are also higher which is kind of a proxy for the level of skills in these sectors. It's also important to mention that most R&D, business R&D is conducted by foreign firms in Ireland and this has materialized into important innovation outcomes, outputs as well such as patents. So we can show that 80% of all patents that have been granted in Ireland have been granted to foreign affiliates. So all this essentially to say that IDA's approach to target high performing activities in sectors is successful and I think it's good to continue that while of course diversification within these activities is also very important. Next slide please. I would like to now emphasize some very novel work that we have put into the paper which which is quite technical, but it's about productivity dynamics of foreign firms in Ireland. And there really the question that we're asking is about are all foreign firms the same in terms of their productivity performance in Ireland. I don't think it comes as a surprise but the answer is no. So we actually see a lot of substantial differences and growing differences across foreign firm productivity in Ireland. And when you look at this graph here you see the red line which is the 95 percentile of the productivity distribution in Ireland over time showing a growing curve. So that means all firms that are really at the top at the frontier of the productivity ladder are growing in terms of productivity. But it also shows that all others like starting from the 75 percentile which you also see as a line here are multiple times lower and actually we don't see so much dynamics in terms of productivity grow of the lower production time levels here. So a very important frontier in Ireland in terms of foreign firms and also quite a dynamic frontier, while a little bit less dynamics at the lower productivity levels. Next slide please. I won't have the time to really go into all the details of this analysis here but I think overall what I would like to mention is that there is less turn in Ireland compared to the international evidence. So we see less exits, like less foreign firms that exit the market than in other countries and the very high resilience at the top. Very sticky firms that have been there over a long time that are the most productive in Ireland. Of course we would see some more dynamics when we go into the sectors and I'm happy to go back to that in the discussion. Next slide please. I would like to spend some time on the third important area covered in the report which is about spill overs. We do really assess three elements of that to kind of assess what is the potential for spill overs in Ireland and the first one is related to capabilities gap between Irish firms and foreign enemies. And of course this will give us an indication on the ability of the domestic firms to adapt new technologies, technologies of foreign firms and then benefit from the foreign firm presence. And so if the gap is lower, not so wide, it would see more likely to see kind of benefits for the domestic firms in terms of productivity. The second issue that we look at is related to buy and sell linkages between foreign and domestic firms. Do we really see these two types of firms engaging with each other? And evidence has shown if we have higher linkages, this will also drive the productivity levels of the domestic firms. The third element that we're looking at is labour mobility. Of course, if you have foreign, if you have labour that moves from foreign affiliates to the domestic economies, it's also likely that they bring some knowledge to the domestic firms that can have an impact on those firms. So let me go through these three elements. So first on capabilities. We see that across sectors we see significant gaps between foreign firms and domestic firms in terms of productivity and that's something that I think both Anna and Martin have mentioned at the beginning. We see here that gap is particularly having chemicals in food and computer and electronics equipment, although in chemicals, we have to mention that the domestic sector is actually not that big in Ireland. According to our analysis and the contrary in the food sector, the foreign sector is not that big. So, of course, that also needs to be taken into account when we do this type of analysis. And it's not on the graph but it's also very important is that the capability gap is also fairly high when we look into the region. So when and productivity gap between foreign firms and domestic firms in the south and east, for example, is is particularly high. And well, actually, existing evidence shows that when IPAs try to attract FDI into the regions and they're trying to do so, not to attract the frontier firms, not the most productive lead firms in the world, but actually more firms at the second order where the capabilities gap may not be as high. And I think some of these considerations have been discussed with IDA and have made their way also a little bit into the strategy. But again, it would be nice to have a discussion on that maybe later. Now on linkage is next slide please. We showed that foreign affiliates in Ireland source actually less locally compared to our city countries on average. So Ireland is here more on the right with with less domestic sourcing and this is true, but we also have to be fair to say that this is very common among small and open economies such as Belgium and the Netherlands. And of course that relates to the market size. So if you have a smaller size for production of inputs, then of course the foreign affiliates will also rely on importing some of these inputs and that's the whole point about global value chains and its advantages. So, of course we want to have more local linkages, but it's all relative to what the market is actually, to what extent it makes sense in a given market. Having said that, we do see growing local linkages in Ireland in recent years. And again, we are impressed and very positive that IDA has put that also into strategy to enhance coordination efforts with Enterprise Ireland, which is covering more the domestic economy to foster more linkages and again, we have continuation of such type of work at the OECD and we stand ready to engage along these lines going forward. Let me go to the last slide, which is on labour mobility. We have seen impressive labour mobility since 2008 in the post crisis period of the last crisis, where we see for example more than one out of every four companies did move from a foreign firm to a domestic firm or into self-employment in Ireland. One in three startup founders has previously worked in a foreign firm and one out of two inventors, patent owners, has changed ownership, has changed employer, at least once over the study period. And again, that's an FDI story because most of the inventors are related to foreign affiliates in Ireland. Next slide please. So, let me conclude with this. We have really identified considerable direct FDI impacts in Ireland. I think identified important potential for FDI spill hours in Ireland. I now really look forward to have an interesting discussion today and to continue working with you, Martin, and the whole IDA team going forward. Thanks again to IIA, IDA for this great collaboration. Thank you very much for that, lots of material there. Martin, just an initial question, follow-up question from the closing part of your discussion there. You mentioned that one in three people who've been involved, who've started up their own business have previously worked in a foreign multinational. Is there comparative data? Do you have any idea how that compares with other countries? Got Martin in Paris one for you? Sure, I can go. Thanks a lot for this question, Dan. We haven't done or we haven't been able to do a cross-country study on this, but I recently came across an EU study that was actually published. It's not from the EU itself, but it covers EU countries that looks at labour mobility in the EU and it does show significant labour mobility in many of the EU countries. I think Ireland comes out as having seen a particularly high level of labour mobility, but let me confirm that. Maybe one additional point here to make is that this whole point about labour mobility has to also be taken with a pinch of salt because of course in a given market you have a limited amount of skilled labour. And when a foreign firm comes in and there is scarce amounts of this skilled labour, it also means that that labour may actually be pulled to foreign firms away from the domestic economy. So that could also be a risk for the domestic firm economy in some of the cases and that study actually showed that this happens particularly if absorptive capacities are not as high. So in that case, it is a higher risk for the domestic economy and also it is a higher risk if the labour market is less flexible in the sense that you can actually see labour mobility happening. Very commonly, so that's just another aspect to the labour mobility side. Thank you. Thank you. A question from Steven Byrne on the productivity gap, that gap you highlighted there between employment and value added. He wonders, could this be misleading? And he raises the issue of companies moving intellectual property assets to Ireland. Any thoughts around that? Any of you, Martin in Dublin or Anna, anybody? Thanks, Dan. Well, listen, I think Martin Breminger is probably a better place to respond given the methodology that he used. But I think what my reading of the report suggests is that the OECD have done a good job of separating out the various strata of companies here in terms of the productivity gap. And they've also, I think, and Martin can correct me if I'm wrong, they have also removed outliers from the data set to ensure that there aren't any anomalies.  And they, I think, predominantly reside probably in the technology sector and within manufacturing in the pharmaceutical sector. And then we have a second strata of companies who coalesce around a medium. And then we have a long tail of companies at various levels of productivity. And that goes from an idea perspective. It is primarily about bringing probably that long tail and those companies with lower levels of productivity, whom are our first frankly, you know, their business model is at risk up to the media and rather than trying to ensure that everybody is at the frontier of productivity and I would suggest that a similar approach is required with domestic companies where we're not trying to ensure that domestic companies and become, you know, productivity. At the productivity frontier companies, we're trying to ensure that everybody gets to the kind of medium, but maybe Martin is better placed given that it sees methodology. Well, thanks a lot, Martin. Thanks a lot for this question. Yes, indeed, we tried to kind of eliminate the outliers and as I showed in the graph where we have the 95% productivity foreign firms in Ireland. So much more productive than the rest and but are actually kind of a small fraction of all foreign firms operating in Ireland. So we try to not focus so much on those. And you're right. Those are definitely also related to the fact that they have high profits in Ireland and that relates to intangible assets that are kind of placed in Ireland, which makes a lot of sense. I think we, I mean, one, we do have another study that looks at intangible assets and if the person that asks the question is interested in that, I think we're soon ready to share that with the audience here, which which does provide some more insights in terms of the role of foreign firms in global variations in terms of how much is is intangible capital and where it goes and where it's positioned and so on. But it's true like when we look at the productivity gaps, and we see very high differences. There is a risk when we aggregate things that we do cover some of these firms that are just like way more productive because they have certain operations. And also the profits being based in Ireland. So, so I think I think that's, that's an important point to mention here as well. Back to the analysis and productivity dynamics. We saw for example in the information and communication sector. We do actually see quite some dynamics in terms of productivity growth of the lower of the lower productivity firms. And I think it's really there and Martin said that it's interesting for IDA I guess to look at how can these firms become more productive in Ireland as well. And also how can these firms actually link with the domestic economy where maybe the gap is is a little bit lower. So it's true that the agree numbers that we show in terms of the gap. Yeah, there can be questions, but but then we have a detailed analysis in the report that gives some more life. In terms of that super productive 5% of companies in numerical terms how many companies are we talking about. Well, just for that I couldn't I cannot answer the question but but maybe Martin has a sense of that. Yeah, I'm sure there's not an exact number to hand. Martin in Dublin. Do you have a sense of are we talking during the times I would suggest. Okay, great. Thanks. So now inevitably there's a couple on tax. Aiden Regan asks whether the OECD has tried to disentangle tax strategies of global multinational enterprises in this data, particularly when measuring productivity and problem. Then maybe I can try to answer that I think that the in the OECD we are doing a big effort on tax and multinational you know that this one is the best project of tax avoidance and I think that this project has has a big impact on the behavior of multinational but at the investment in the investment division we also have the FDA statistic and we try also to we develop the concept of special purpose entities or that right now also is in the IMF balance of payment and there is a review of right now of the right now of the benchmark and I think that this will be adapted by anyone that means that we are trying to measure what activities is a real the activity and what activity goes through these countries for tax reasons. But it's true that to answer the question and to link this issue of tax with the productivity and labor you need to link this FDA with other databases because the FDA is a little more aggregated and we haven't done that for this work. How do you recognize the multinationals in Ireland that are of course there is some issue of taxes and going for tax and higher profit are there thanks to the taxes but doesn't mean that the but it's not a special purpose entities are entities that are multinational that are creating value in Ireland. Of course, the high profit and as was mentioned by Martin in his presentation, how much this profit stay in Ireland and raise the reinvestment or go back to the countries is another question. That means that yes we are working on that in this particular report we analyze a little this issue but but making a disentangle the what goes to productivity means a little more work and linking this work that we are doing with other databases and we're working on that. Yeah, if I might just come in there and and you know just agreeing obviously with Anna and but and you know I'm surprising you know that we're in Ireland and that we're talking about FDI and the tax comes up but this is an issue obviously you know how you measure FDI and and the impact of you know tax policy on FDI and indeed how you just measure FDI full stop this is an issue for all my peers across the globe and something we discuss and you know at intervals when we get together. And, you know, obviously financial flows may flatter some countries undoubtedly and we have to acknowledge that, but that is exactly why, you know, in Ireland we focus on tangible measures of FDI so you know the things that are, I think indisputable are the expenditure of foreign multinationals within Ireland on payroll, on services, on manufacturing, you know and I gave this earlier over 25 billion. The numbers of people employed in multinationals, you know which to my mind is probably a really good measure because it means you have to have substance here so you know the 257,000 people are actually employed day to day. Not to mention the significant extra impact and indirect employment you know of over 400,000 and we use a very low multiplier in Ireland of about 1.8 this is probably in truth much higher. The corporation tax, the actual tax take from these companies, you know, it is a measure of how much it is here, as is the income tax take so there are a lot of measures which we can use to try to you know discern what the substance is on the ground. And I think it is worthwhile maybe concentrating on those things as well as obviously you know we welcome the work by the OECD and looking at what you know is happening in special purpose entities and how they might have an impact. Thanks. A couple of questions coming in on sourcing multinationals sourcing materials and services from the local economy. Louise Brennan from Trinity College, let me read her point as highlighted Ireland is highly integrated into global value chains, as also mentioned there is a low level of sourcing by foreign companies from indigenous companies. Is there a tension between Ireland's degree of integration into global value chains and the need for a greater local sourcing by foreign companies I think Martin and Paris you sort of addressed that in your presentation but you might want to go into it in a little more detail. And Adrian Hurley has a similar one. Is there any way of knowing if the low linkages between foreign companies and domestic sources are due to the non availability of relative relative inputs in Ireland, or is there a big opportunity to increase this over the shorter term. So Martin and Paris maybe it's relevant to you. No, thanks a lot for these questions and let me answer the first one but maybe actually Martin it will be better place to to answer the second one because, because he's probably talking a lot to the investors and those their concerns in terms of availability or non availability of inputs in the domestic economy. No but just that, I think what we identify is is indeed that that the sourcing the share of sourcing of from local firms is fairly low compared to other ICD countries. But as I mentioned before, this is very common among small and open economies in the EU, and you would see that in in Switzerland in Belgium in the Netherlands and so on. So why is that again, it is, it's not that the inputs are not available but in some cases it makes sense that they're not available because it's just a small market, and in the small market you cannot expect that that all inputs can be produced of the of the right quality as a global lead firm that is is producing in Ireland there would expect so. So in that sense I think we would never want to see like the highest chairs of input sourcing in Ireland I think that wouldn't be an optimal outcome, ultimately and I think the whole story of global vital chain integration is indeed the fact that there are different locations in the world that are specialized and better placed to produce certain inputs and that's why we do want to source from them in. And we do want to look across the world to have optimal ways of producing and so on. So, but having said that of course, ideally would be good to have strong linkages with the domestic economy still. And of course, we do want to look into opportunities for foreign firms in Ireland to potentially source from local firms if the inputs are available. And, and there, I understand from from recent idea discussions with colleagues from from idea that that in the more recent years these these linkages and have actually increased when when when they look at their recent statistics. I do that our data is a little bit data now we have been looking at 2016 and according to recent data might be a very low fairly low share has actually been increased in more recently, but but maybe I hand over to Martin in terms of like. Yeah, are they not available or not I think we haven't done interviews with firms themselves so I think maybe you have some perspective from that. I think, you know, as Martin has outlined, you know, actually in the data set that Martin and the years that he and his colleagues looked at, you know, local sourcing kind of stalls some part it has increased sense and you know we can see that in the economic impact figures. But again, I think it is worth reflecting that we are similar to other small OECD economies in terms of the level of sourcing that there is in Ireland. There's been a huge focus on global sourcing and trying to link Enterprise Ireland and look and and indigenous companies with multi nationals. There are challenges in that. And I don't think all the challenges related just the availability. And you know global sourcing also suggests that you know companies are looking for companies that can supply across the globe and scale of Irish companies in some instances is is an issue. And there are also, as we have highlighted productivity gaps and we need multi nationals, procuring from companies that are highly productive so the more we bridge those productivity gaps, the more sourcing that could happen here. And I think in that regard, you know one part of the new strategy that we have to try to build those linkages with between Irish companies and multi nationals is the clustering effect because we believe it will not just fostering a foster global sourcing but also lots of other spillover effects that are going to be a signature initiative in the new strategy. Okay, thanks. So there's a lot of questions here and maybe for the final five minutes we might look at more forward looking ones. There's one on tax from on the BEPS process which I might send give to you, but just one of the first questions we got in was from Paul Sweeney, as Martin, what will be almost inevitable regulation and perhaps a breakup of the tech companies by the US and EU mean for Ireland. So, what's happening in the with the big tech giants and how could that potentially affect Ireland. I presume you've seen that my way down. And so I think listen, Paul, I'm not sure the breakup of the firms is inevitable. I think the increased regulation is probably almost certain and increased oversight. We didn't have to see I suppose how that shakes out and, you know, there will still and you know we're largely talking about technology firms in this vein and obviously there will still be a demand for technology that will still be growth in the technology area. Those companies will, whether they are still monoliths or they are disaggregated will still need to service their clients from somewhere. And, you know, our job is obviously to monitor the progress of those and make sure that they're servicing whatever they look like they're providing that service from Ireland. Okay, let me go over to Alan Duke's question about the BEPS process. Any action to rationalize international tax relations will be incomplete without the participation of the United States and Caribbean administrations. What are the prospects of real participation by those administrations in OECD actions. That's from Alan Duke, a former finance minister. I'm not a tax expert, I have to say, but I know that right now the efforts of BEPS is implementation and implementation. This is what they are working on. And I think that the US was a little disentangled, but I think that right now it's starting to be engaged again. The Caribbean are more difficult because of the capacity. But they are also, I completely agree, these countries need to be engaged, but I would say that the United States at the technical level has been engaged in the implementation part and I know that right now are also doing extra effort with these Caribbean countries. But I agree and also in terms of measurement, I think that the special purpose entity that we are working on, but the United States has this kind of a statistic, but we need also other kind of a statistic to understand better what is going on in the world in general. And this new update that also the IMF is doing, I think that we'll go in that right direction. Dan, if I can say something before it's also there are a lot of questions about the linkage and the FDI and the linkage with the impact on employment, the impact on wages and there is something about that. And in the regional impact, how to also improve more the spillover in the domestic economies. And I think that, yes, this is one report that is moving the agenda and I think that of course the strategy is broader and then it's tackling better all these kind of issues but just want to say what I said at the beginning, we are developing right now this kind of FDA policy toolkit, because exactly most of the countries are asking how we strengths these linkages with the sustainable impact is not just to attract more investment but is attracting investment and have a positive impact in society. And the society is the region's because regions are lacking behind the society's small medium enterprises because you want them also to benefit from the global markets. And the society is people that are skilled that how you put more skills there and more wages there and I mean that this is a demand that I think that this is something that is not just for Ireland I think that it for old countries or we CD and non CD countries for this reason, we are trying to focus our work right now. And I think that they are on the policy mix and the institution because one agency and in that I think that the strategy that marked 100% is very good because in a way you will not do it by yourself you need to do it with other agencies and the linkage with other policies. Okay, thank you well look we've come to the end of the event of our hour. I apologize to many people whose questions and points I didn't get to, to put to the panel. We've had hundreds of people on this at this event so really just too many to get through we could have gone for at least another half an hour to deal with the questions. But let me on behalf of the Institute thank both of both the idea Ireland and the OECD for joining us on this event I think it's been a very interesting one and the report will give plenty of proof of thought for those who tune in today and others more widely. So with that, thank you all for participating and thank you thank the audience for joining. It was a good option.


That'll be that'll be exciting. All right, Jennifer. We recently talked about how a place like the Garden of Eden would not be good for humans, because humans have to put forth effort to accomplish things. But sometimes that effort can be a struggle, which can be unpleasant or even painful. So how would you explain the difference between that and the Gordon or the Peterson type idea that suffering is important somehow? Well, I think it's it's it's not so much the suffering. So the problem with the Garden of Eden is that human beings in the Garden of Eden are completely passive. They don't use their minds, they don't think, they don't they don't have to be productive, they don't have to act, they're just there. They take care of the garden, but it's not even clear what that means, right? Taking care of the garden because, you know, God's creature there. I mean, the snakes can talk. I'm not sure they need taking care of. So it's this passive animalistic existence. And that's what makes it bad. It's human beings as animals, right? It's what we would be if we were completely determined. And everything was encoded and God provided us just with stuff and we didn't I mean food, because we didn't want any other stuff. And so we value less. So there's no happiness possible. There's no values possible. So it's not about the struggle and it's about values.   It's a striving for life. It's a striving for living the best life that you can live. And that striving is fun. That striving is, yeah, it's fun. It's interesting. It's exciting. It's thrilling. It gives purpose to your life. It makes life interesting. Yeah, it's what life is. It's meaning. You know, Jordan Peterson talks a lot about meaning, but he doesn't get that it's exactly that striving for values. That's what gives you meaning. It's your values that give you meaning. So it's and values means that you act to gain or keep. So you have to act.  That's horrible.  You know it's horrible. So now your entire existence is a struggle to delay death. But it's the opposite.  What a miracle. And the whole point is to live well. You know, that's what survival really means. And that involves embracing life and that involves values and that involves doing interesting fun things, exciting things, stimulating things, using your mind effectively. And that's, that's good. That I mean, that's good is the wrong word. But that's, that's where the meaning comes from. So there's no pain and suffering. Don't mean anything in that sense, right? What is, I mean, I hate it when I show my ignorance of the novels, but I just can't remember who said what when. I think it was Howard Ruoc who said the pain only goes so deep, right? That's right. Yeah, in the phone hit. I mean, the pain only goes so deep. The struggle is only so, I mean, when, when read and makes to the, to the line and it discovers written steel and, and has done it, all those hours of struggling, of pain, of suffering, of physical pain, of sleepless nights, that's gone. It doesn't matter. It's insignificant in the big picture of things. So for Jordan Peterson, that is the essence. And, and the whole point of life is overcome it. No, the whole point of life is to attain your values. And therefore if you attain them, then the pain and suffering are insignificant.  And then it's, then it's miserable. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, women or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism and impotence, and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. All right. Before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I think at least 100 of you actually like the show.  There you go. Start liking it. I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this. And you know, the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So, you know, if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. But if you like it, don't just sit there, help get the show promoted. Of course, you should also share. And you can support the show at your on book show.com slash support on Patreon or subscribe star or locals and show you support for all for the work, for the value. Hopefully you're receiving from this.  You'll know what shows are on when they're on, you'll get notified. Right. So, yes, like, share, subscribe, support, like, share, subscribe, support. There you go. Easy. Do one or all of those, please.