Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have an opportunity to say a few words on the Department's 2019 Estimates, particularly the allocations to the Department's regulation programme and my immediate areas of responsibility. As the Minister has said, Brexit is an all-encompassing challenge for Departments and their agencies, including the agencies and regulatory bodies of our Department. The Brexit challenge heightens the importance of ensuring that our business regulation environment facilitates business investment and development, competition in the marketplace, high standards of consumer protection and corporate governance. It must also provide Ireland with a competitive advantage in the global market.

The 2019 Revised Estimates have increased the funding of the Department's regulation programme to €85.8 million, which represents an increase of 5% on the 2018 allocation. Much of the increase is to assist our regulatory bodies and agencies in meeting the challenges posed by Brexit. For example, in the area of my direct responsibility, funding provided to the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, in the 2019 Revised Estimates has been increased by €500,000 to enable it to respond to the increased demand for services arising from Brexit. This follows the additional €400,000 provided to the HSA in 2018. This has been allocated to augment the HSA's staffing resources, especially in its chemicals, market surveillance and accreditation business units, which are the business areas most likely to be impacted by Brexit. In 2018, the HSA increased its staffing complement by almost 6%. These numbers will increase again as a result of the additional funding provided in 2019.

The other area of responsibility in my Department's regulation programme which I would like to mention is the workplace relations programme. As the committee will be aware, legislation is before the Oireachtas to expand the remit of the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to include the Garda and Civil Service. To this end, the funding provided to the WRC in 2019 is being increased by €1 million to enable it to respond to the additional demand for its services arising from its expanded remit. The increase in funding will increase the WRC's conciliation, facilitation and mediation services and will maintain its overall service provision, including to new Garda and Civil Service clients. It will also enable the WRC's adjudication services to continue to advance the progress made in processing and scheduling times over the course of 2019 with a view to achieving the ultimate strategic goal of processing most cases within six months by 2022.

With the Chair's indulgence I would like to say a few words about the local enterprise offices, LEOs, for which I have direct responsibility. Having worked closely with and visited many of the local enterprise offices throughout the country, I pay tribute to their achievements and that of their clients in creating 3,656 net new jobs in 2018. That employment in LEO client enterprises is now in excess of 36,000 is a tribute to the efforts of all local enterprise offices in supporting local indigenous businesses to start up, grow and thrive in every region in the country. Indeed during the recent local enterprise week held earlier this month, our 31 LEOs jointly ran more than 300 events, clearly illustrating the panoply of supports they can provide to startups, aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses in their respective areas. I recently had the pleasure of attending the Clare county enterprise awards and witnessing the success of enterprises that have been created as a direct result of the support of the local enterprise offices in my county.

I am delighted therefore that additional capital funding of €5 million has been provided to local enterprise offices in 2019. This significant increase of 22% in the LEO funding will enable them to meet the growing demand for their services, particularly in light of Brexit. The additional funding provided to the LEOs will be targeted to ensure that they can continue to roll out the Brexit customs training workshops and EU workshops, facilitate clients' access to the Enterprise Ireland Brexit SME scorecard, assist clients through the technical assistance for micro-exporters grant process, respond to the increased demand for the Lean for Micro programme, roll out the second iteration of the LEO innovation investment fund programme, provide tailored mentoring, targeting and training on specific Brexit challenges, promote the very important trading online voucher scheme, assist clients in accessing credit through Microfinance Ireland, MFI, facilitate clients in accessing the €300 million Brexit loan scheme, and of course facilitate clients in accessing the Enterprise Ireland agile innovation fund. While Brexit presents a challenge for all businesses, the challenge will undoubtedly be greater for indigenous small businesses. I therefore welcome the fact that each local enterprise office has appointed a dedicated Brexit adviser to assist companies in preparing for Brexit in their respective areas.

I would also like to say a few words about the challenge of digitalisation and the digital Single Market.

The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, referred to the importance of preparing for tomorrow's economy and the targets identified under the recently published future jobs initiative to shift our enterprise and jobs focus to create quality jobs that will be resilient in the future. There is no doubt that the enterprise and jobs of tomorrow will be significantly shaped by the increasing impact of digitalisation. Digitalisation and digital transformation will have far-reaching impacts for our economy and society. It is imperative that Ireland is well positioned to maximise the economic and social benefits from digitalisation and ensure that we are in a position to enjoy these benefits.

It is my privilege as Minister of State with responsibility for the EU digital Single Market, DSM, to chair the interdepartmental committee on DSM. The committee was established to ensure a whole-of-Government approach and cross-Government co-ordination of the DSM agenda at national and EU level. The committee is a co-ordinated team of representatives of relevant Departments who collectively implement the comprehensive DSM agenda. From a national perspective, a new national digital strategy is being prepared. It is co-ordinated by the Department of the Taoiseach and other Departments, including my own, are feeding into the process, which will include extensive stakeholder consultation that was completed last year. The mission of the strategy is to deliver a number of important recommendations around connectivity and security, Government services, addressing the digital divide for citizens and businesses and innovation and skills in order to advance Ireland's digital process. Work on the development of a national strategy on artificial intelligence is to begin very shortly and will be completed by September 2019. The strategy will be aligned with and contribute to the broader EU strategy and will present a cross-Government framework as well as setting out how Ireland will engage with the dynamic and challenging developments in areas such as artificial intelligence technologies with a focus on nationally significant areas of opportunity.

I welcome the establishment of the small and medium enterprise and entrepreneurship, SMEE, consultation group which held its inaugural meeting today at the Royal College of Physicians. The group was established arising from the OECD review commissioned by the Department of our SME and entrepreneurship policies. The meeting, which I chaired, was attended by almost 50 people. The role of the consultation group is to provide a platform for structured engagement between Government, agencies, representative bodies and small businesses. Its establishment is a concrete demonstration of the Government's recognition of the importance of ensuring that appropriate structures are being put in place to enable the voice of small business to be heard in policymaking and reflects the reality that there are 219,818 micro-enterprises operating in all regions, accounting for 92% of active enterprises in the State.

I hope that the foregoing flavour of my areas of responsibility within the Department and the funding being provided by the 2019 Revised Estimates in those areas will be of assistance to the committee. I am happy to take questions from the one committee member who is present.