Mr. Declan Hughes:

As my time is limited I will race through the questions. On remote working hubs, we have quantified, with colleagues in the Department of rural affairs and also the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment that there are nearly 1,000. We have enterprise centres, which are more sophisticated, in the sense that they offer business development programmes, all the way down to libraries that have Wi-Fi. We want to ensure that everybody has access to a facility where they can remote work but also where they can collaborate and network because that is hugely important for them from a business development perspective and getting start-ups.

On the issue of sustainable indicators, one point I would make on it relates to the procurement side. We now have guidance on green procurement. That will be a challenge for many businesses but it will also provide significant opportunities. If a company can get its green credentials in terms of demonstrating energy efficiency and in waste management and responding to green opportunities, for example, with sustainability across all of the sustainable development goals, that will help to position it, in particular for Irish-based businesses on the procurement side.

A question on procurement came up earlier. I am on the interim board of the Office of Government Procurement and it has a dedicated SME advisory group, which meets three or four times a year and it continually engages with SME representative bodies such as Chambers Ireland, ISME and the Small Firms Association, SFA, among others, to identify blockages or gaps to Irish businesses. It is within the context of the EU framework on procurement but many initiatives have been taken and many things can be done. The majority of businesses participating in public procurement are SMEs but it is not necessarily the same in terms of the actual value. We want to increase that participation. The LEOs, Chambers Ireland, InterTradeIreland and others do work on helping businesses to navigate through the procurement system.

In terms of a one-stop-shop, Senator Garvey mentioned LEOs and I want to emphasise again that the LEOs in every county are the first-stop-shop. What they found in the recent crisis is that so many businesses had come to them that they had not previously dealt with, so they work right across all sectors in terms of that first piece of advice. We have a website, supportingsmes.ie, and a business can put in its size, scale and location and get direct contacts to businesses to whom they should be talking.

In terms of awnings and other facilities, some of that is a local planning issue. A lot of initiatives that can be taken are being taken by local authorities and we would encourage them to be as flexible as possible, which many of them have been. We have seen in many cases that the funding available through the restart grant has helped businesses to invest in PPE as well as site facilities. It is a case of working with the local authorities on the public realm. We would welcome those initiatives.

I will mention a couple of points on the general promotion of Ireland. We heard this morning about the new guaranteed Irish campaign on guaranteed Irish gifts. The Design and Crafts Council of Ireland launched a Made Local campaign a few weeks ago. That is about Irish design and craft and giving the designers and small businesses a platform where businesses can access them. We also have a brochure which has gone out to all the embassies and overseas offices which shows the type of giftware that is available.

There is a really good promotion happening through Design & Crafts Council Ireland. In terms of retail, one of the big initiatives, which the Minister of State, Deputy English, will be leading in the coming weeks, is about shopping early and shopping local for Christmas, so that we do not have queues in the last week for collection. Members may have seen some of that. It attempts to put a spotlight on and give a platform to Irish businesses. We are very happy to work with business groups to promote local goods and services. I will come back to the Senator with statistics on productivity.