Mr. Declan Hughes:

It is key to understand that we have stepped up our engagement in the midlands region. We have a specific regional enterprise plan and a steering committee involving all of the stakeholders, including enterprise, wider society, local authorities and education and training boards. They have been asked to put specific focus on the transition and what issues are arising for businesses as well as communities. The Minister has met the chair of the regional enterprise plan, Dr. Anne Cusack, and they have had specific discussions on what additional initiatives can be taken. We are also engaged with the transition team.

Enterprise Ireland is actively engaged with Bord na Móna on assessing areas of opportunities for new business. Some of them are set out in the regional enterprise plan. We had already been considering them. It is not as if this has come as a shock and this could be seen in the strategy earlier in the year. This is stepping up some of that engagement. Particularly in terms of engagement with Bord na Móna, there was a meeting on 23 October between Enterprise Ireland and the senior management team looking at a range of opportunities.

Some of them are set out around the aquaculture side, herb development and the energy side but also looking at the property portfolio and seeing what opportunities that may give rise to in terms of second sites or for other industries to locate. It is a similar situation then with the local enterprise offices in terms of seeing what additional measures they can take. The key thing now is that the skills audit is under way with the education and training boards, and once that is complete, we will then have a sense of the skills that are available in the region, if there is a need for upskilling, if there are entrepreneurial opportunities or opportunities for new business and how effectively we engage with them.