Ms Br?d O'Connell:

Yes, there are. Quite a lot of research was done at the beginning. I spoke to Deputy Shanahan about this a while ago. Several other EU member states have the equivalent of Guaranteed Irish. Examples include Made in France and Made in Italy. There are also equivalents in the UK, Scotland and Wales. Almost all countries have something similar and they have continued to trade. At one stage Guaranteed Irish was seen as protectionist but we have changed that completely in the last eight years. That was never the view of the other member states, which is amazing. We were very straight-laced in how we operated here, probably to the cost of Guaranteed Irish. We have reconfigured, restructured and repositioned, with a focus on supporting local but looking global and are very proud to be European, while pushing our own businesses out there. Our businesses are based in Ireland but they can be from anywhere, of course. That has been to the benefit of Guaranteed Irish and has renewed interest. There is no question but that Covid played right into our hands. While it was an awful pandemic for the whole world, the reality was that people really took stock and looked at where products and businesses were coming from and tried to support those a little bit closer to home. That helped our growth hugely. It was also true that we were ready. We had an amazing new brand and team, an amazing structure and good governance.