EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan has rejected a call by US President Donald Trump for American pharmaceutical to move their manufacturing back to the US.
Mr Hogan said: "American companies don't locate in Ireland just because they like Ireland, they do so because they make money." "They save €1.7bn in tariffs because they are located in Ireland in the European Union.
That is a significant amount of money." Mr Hogan made the comments from Brussels to an event hosted by the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin.
He also warned it could be 2024 before Ireland and other European economies fully recover from the economic and trade effects of the Covid-19 crisis.