If I were Deputy Allen I would not be relying too much on the initative of the Minister.

We all recall the optimism about Clondalkin.

I happened to be in Cork on the same day as the Minister. I was there, too, the day after but it seems now as if he and I were in different cities.

The Deputy must confine himself to a question.

I met a number of interested people and they told me——

The House may be interested in what Deputy Reynolds found but he is not in order.

The impression I got was that only the black economy was alive in Cork, that without that the city would be dead. We have heard those echoes of optimism before but would the Minister agree that the first prerequisite in so far as any investment being returned to Cork or indeed to Ireland is concerned, is the establishment of a proper climate for investment? Would the Minister agree also that the present climate is being totally hostile to investment and that if evidence of this situation was needed, today's revelation of £500 million being repatriated by companies who would invest here represents that evidence.

Get rid of Dukes first.

Have the free port proposals been cleared through the EEC and would the Minister not agree that tourism in Cork, which is the major employment sector there, was not even considered by the task force in terms of the restoration of jobs? At least, no action was taken in that direction.

I would agree that the investment climate is extremely important. The figures released this morning show that foreign companies investing here are making even larger profits than many people thought was the case.

I never doubted it.

This indicates that, as we have been saying on our various industrial promotion visits abroad, Ireland is the most profitable industrial location in Europe. That is why we are getting the vast majority of mobile American investment. That is why we have 350 American firms here and why one of them, Bourne Electronics last week announced an expansion in Cork.

How many American companies have set up here this year?

That is why also I expect to be able to announce an expansion by another American company also in Cork, within the next two weeks. I expect that such expansion will continue because we have both a good investment climate and facilities to support high-technology industry in a form which I hope the Deputy will not deride — the micro-electronics research centre in Cork and the proposed micro-electronics design centre in Cork also.

Order, please.

By taking a pessimistic and negative attitude the Deputy is only doing himself a disservice and that is not in keeping with his previous record in this area.

There were only two such projects this year.