Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 February 2023
74. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will provide details of the plan for the implementation of the White Paper on Enterprise 2022-2030, including a detailed timeline with key milestones; the details of the plans, under the White Paper, to support indigenous enterprises; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9165/23]
View answerMy question relates to the implementation of the commitments in the recent White Paper on Enterprise 2022–2030. Has the Minister a detailed timeline for the milestones? I am particularly interested in supporting indigenous industries, which subject I will come back to.
The White Paper sets out the Government's approach to enterprise policy for the period to 2030. It includes 15 targets that detail the Government's ambitions for employment and across the seven identified priority enterprise policy objectives. These objectives are integrating decarbonisation and net-zero commitments; placing digital transformation at the heart of enterprise policy; advancing Ireland's FDI and trade value proposition; strengthening the Irish-owned exporting sector; enabling locally trading sectors to thrive; stepping up enterprise innovation; and building on strengths and opportunities, particularly by building specific clusters in different parts of the country that could benefit indigenous and FDI companies.
My Department will lead the development of consecutive two-year implementation plans of cross-government activity to implement the White Paper commitments. The implementation plans will focus on delivery of key initiatives or projects under each of the seven priority objectives. The first implementation plan, covering the period to the end of 2024, will be prepared in quarter 1 of this year and published shortly thereafter.
Progress will be reported on every six months to the Cabinet committee on the economy and investment and monitored on an ongoing basis via the associated senior officials group, with the first progress report being prepared in quarter 3 of this year. The biannual reports will include updates on progress towards the 15 targets, with new data under each of the measures included as they become available from the relevant sources.
On the question of supporting indigenous enterprise, the White Paper sets ambitious targets to strengthen the Irish-owned exporting sector and enable locally trading sectors to thrive. This includes doubling the number of large Irish exporters and having an additional 2,000 Irish firms exporting by 2030.
Through successive implementation plans, we will facilitate enhanced management capabilities, provide access to competitive finance options and nurture strong sectoral and technological ecosystems. We will take action to fuel entrepreneurship and enable companies to scale and succeed from Ireland.
Locally trading firms will be empowered to achieve their potential through supports that will align their business models with the transition to a net-zero economy and boost their productivity through innovation, digitalisation and skills development.
I welcome that the Minister is giving a date for the implementation plan for the first quarter and that it will be published. The Minister set out the enterprise priorities and targets. I have read the document. I have read the White Paper although I have serious doubts about its failure to recognise that we need transformative change in how we do business. Given climate change, we have no choice. There has to be transformative change. Therefore, I am a little worried that the White Paper proceeds with the model as is. I am all for a thriving economy and a thriving Galway city but feel the transformative message has not got through. If I consider this on a parochial or specific basis, I look to the seaweed industry, or the lack thereof. I also look to the wool industry, on which a fantastic report was produced. There is something woolly about the setting up of the wool council. There is no mention of islands or of a policy for them. I am aware that this is parallel to the enterprise strategy, but it is also very much part of it.
Those are very broad questions. I am just trying to think of how I can give the Deputy an answer in a minute. I assure her the islands will not be forgotten in an enterprise strategy. I also assure her that small family-run businesses across County Galway and Galway city are very much part of our enterprise strategy. They, too, need to be part of a transition to a decarbonised economy and a move towards a digital-based economy. We need to help them do so. That is one of the reasons we changed the remit of the local enterprise offices, for example. Up until the end of last year, local enterprise offices could deal only with companies with fewer than ten staff. They can now deal with companies with between ten and 50 staff, which covers the vast majority of SMEs across the country. It will involve a huge additional workload for local enterprise offices. We need to staff them and fund them accordingly. There is a suite of support measures and grant-aid systems. There is mentoring and a very successful Skillnet programme, which we want Irish companies to be engaged in to upskill themselves. There is a considerable suite of measures.
The White Paper was launched only in December, so it is only a couple of months old. We do not even have the first implementation plan in place yet. Therefore, there is a job of work to do to get the narrative out, and that is why we are holding nine regional business conferences around the country, the first of which will start next Friday morning in Letterkenny. We will be taking the narrative out to the country to speak to businesses and work it out with them.
I am aware that we do not have enough time but maybe this is the start of a conversation or debate on the matter. To go back to the word "transformative", we cannot continue to do business as we have done. That is the message from climate change and the emergency we have declared. We need to go local again and go small.
With regard to the seaweed industry, the Dáil passed in 2017 or 2018 a motion I had tabled on recognising the potential of seaweed for local communities. Nothing has happened since. It is the exact same with wool. Sheep farmers are rightly complaining about getting no price for wool when there is a fantastic opportunity to deliver an indigenous industry given the various potential uses of wool.
I realise the White Paper was produced only in December. There is an absolute commitment to regional development. What is the Northern and Western Regional Assembly saying? It is saying the gap between its region and others has progressively widened in many spheres. It states this worrying trend has been attributed to a lack of investment in infrastructure assets.
On regional development, the IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland numbers from last year indicate that the majority of jobs created were actually created outside Dublin. Virtually every county in the country has seen an increase in employment and in population. There may be one or two exceptions, but that is all. There is a reason the regional meetings to engage with businesses are starting in Letterkenny.
We are finishing in Dublin. We are doing eight meetings outside of Dublin first to talk to businesses and listen to what they are saying about the pressures they are facing and so on in order that we can respond to that. I take the Deputy's points with regard to perception. By the way, some very innovative companies are using seaweed products in Ireland and exporting all over the world, adding significant value to those raw materials. That is what we want to see in sectors that have potential, for example, seaweed. I believe seaweed has much more potential than we are currently delivering on.
We need to piece this together. We have an enterprise strategy that takes us out to 2030, which is appropriate and very ambitious. We are heading off around the country now to speak to businesses about how they can successfully be part of that.
