David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his officials to the meeting. I have a few questions.

Covid supports have been extremely welcome for businesses. I have engaged with quite a number of businesses that have said they would have gone under without them. What is the plan to withdraw Covid supports in 2022? Will the enterprise agencies continue to support companies throughout 2022? Obviously, these supports cannot keep going forever.

According to the Minister, IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs have performed very well on job creation in the past year. Are there plans to improve that further next year? What are the challenges the Minister sees coming down the track? The industry seems to have weathered Brexit and Covid pretty well to date. People have been talking about labour shortages and inflation. Has any thought been given to trying to attract some of our diaspora but who might want to come back and could assist our workforce here? Does that come under the Minister's remit?

In the agrifood sector, €70 million in funding under the capital investment scheme was announced in November to respond to Brexit. There was €100 million in total announced. Is there to be a call too and, if so, when will it happen? Will it be for more than the €30 million available in 2022?

An issue many of us are interested in is the Government policy to rejuvenate towns and town centres, especially rural towns such as, in my constituency, the town of Youghal, which the Minister is familiar with and which is very much on the margins. What is the Department's and the State agencies' view on targeting such towns and visiting them to see what land is available? IDA Ireland is getting a big increase in its capital expenditure for property, I assume for purchase, in order that advance factories and facilities might be available. In my region the Construction Industry Federation is concerned about what it sees as the lack of property, advance factories and so on that people could be invited to use.

Another issue, which might have come up at our meeting last week, when Mr. Martin Shanahan was before us, is remote working hubs and, beyond that, remote working spaces in order that people would not have to travel long distances. We are talking about scaling that up to a higher level than just hot desks. Has any work been done on that?

Those are some of the questions I wanted to ask. Overall, the impression I get from businesses out there is that things are going well. IDA Ireland is in a league of its own.