John Davis

The Irish have done that well in the past, David.

So I think the presidency is going to be important to advance some of those issues.

We're going to have some real flagship kind of occasions as well, particularly an AI summit.

And we're going to see a lot of global business leaders coming to Dublin for an AI summit later in the year, in October of the year.

So I think that's going to be a real key flagship opportunity.

And I think one in which Ireland can position itself, you know, cutting edge regulation, innovation, how do we manage those kind of trade offs and how do we ensure that we get an AI, not just regulatory model, but an economic and kind of competitiveness and productivity opportunity for the European economy.

That's going to work really well for us.

So presidency is important, and the Irish kind of chairing some of these key meetings can really make a material impact.

So European competitiveness, we now have, again, a Nile crisis that we didn't have six months ago.

So cost of business in Europe is a colossal issue for our members as well.

perhaps spoken about before you know Europe is division three when it comes to our energy costs and unfortunately Ireland is right at the bottom of that league table so you know energy cost competitiveness is going to be a key issue and then how we navigate

the sensible regulation agenda, crucially important in the context of AI and other issues that are coming through.

How do we find new trade and market opportunities?

You know, we spoke about the tensions in terms of the transatlantic relationship, and that is a changed relationship with the U.S.

So our new trade opportunities in terms of finalizing Mercosur, Canada, Mexico, India, so lots of these new trade opportunities have never been more important for Irish business, and Europe can help deliver those.

Yeah, I think so, David.

We were around the table with the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach as part of the UK-Ireland summit.

And it's fair to say, I think that relationship has not been more positive since before Brexit.

So it is in a really good place.

But then we see the wheels of politics obviously moving very quickly in the UK.