The Government Press Conference for the launch of the Revised National Development Plan (2026–2035) Date: Tuesday, July 22, 2025.Location: Government Buildings, Merrion Street. 
When asked about the National Development Plan "Where do you anticipate getting the workforce for this extra spending and extra building, because we know how squeezed the sector is at the moment and how hard people are to find?"
Taoiseach Micheál Martin: "Even though we are at full employment, it's not stopping foreign direct investment into the country, because we're now part of the European labour market — and that's been a key factor and a key ingredient in terms of our economic offering, that the skill sets actually and the demographics of Ireland are beneficial for investment. I would anticipate that people can come back when they see the opportunities as well in construction and in infrastructure in the time ahead, as a result of this plan."

"Developing a Life Sciences Vision for Ireland: The EU Agenda" — Frances Fitzgerald chairing, putting a question to Pilar Aguar Fernandez, Director at People, Health and Society, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission  Date: Thursday, September 18, 2025. Location: Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) Dublin 
"If we want to compete with China and the USA we need to see a better European single market, a better union of skills" Pilar response: "We are trying to create a single market also for researchers in Europe, it is one of the flagships for this Commission and for our commissioner"
Ireland's overuse of talent from outside the EU for IT & pharma has been very male, e.g. a site in Limerick in 2023 was 97% male over 124 hires. If we want more women to join construction and infrastructure we need to balance the project and function leads ahead of them. Revolutions may happen from the bottom up, but it does not land for workforce equality. We need to re-engineer experienced hiring funded by state investment running at circa €1,000 a second invested from now and all the other 294 million seconds until the end of 2035. Widening the pool to include more European talent isn't about replacing non-EU hires, it's about there being room for both. It will take a Whole Village, many are needed, all are welcome.