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

I welcome the Tánaiste and his officials. I thank him for his very informative briefing.

I remember a time when the talk was always about job losses and company closures but now we have virtually full employment, which brings its own challenges. I want to ask the Tánaiste about the pressures that companies face and how there is increased talk of corporate insolvencies. What does he think about that and what are his projections?

I appreciate that there are 20 energy schemes available but I am conscious their uptake could be improved. Has the Tánaiste a strategy to improve uptake? Is it a case that companies do not know about the supports are available? It would be useful if he gave the committee a note on the 20 schemes that he mentioned so that we are informed. I would like to know what we can do to improve uptake.

It is interesting to note that the Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme, TBESS, grants relief on 40% of the increase in electricity or gas bills so that is €10,000 per month per business unit. Initially, it was not realised that the amount is per month and there was a cap of €10,000. We need to let people know that it is per month because I have heard media reports where people said that €10,000 was not going to do an awful lot for them. They did not realise that it is €10,000 per month as the Tánaiste has indicated here this morning, which is important to note.

I welcome the suggestion to merge employment permits and visas because it would reduce bureaucracy. I ask the Tánaiste to give a timeline for when that might happen and what stage of the process has been reached.

Last week, I proposed here that we would focus on the trade element of the Department's brief and all of my colleagues agreed that we would do that and take one country as a case study. We would focus on one country to see what agencies here are doing with respect to trade and consider the companies that trade from Ireland into that country and vice versa. I suggested that we start off by comparing Ireland with Canada because, and I am part of the friendship group with Canada, it is a fact that Canada has a lot in common with Ireland. Colleagues agreed with my suggestion for which I thank them and I hope that we will start that comparison from next year.

The next issue is the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA. Perhaps the Tánaiste can tell us what is happening with CETA and what he thinks will happen.

The corporate sustainable due diligence directive is being discussed at European level. Can the Tánaiste outline Ireland's position on the directive? Does he believe that we should widen the scope of the business covered by the directive? Will we push for the directive to apply to full value chains for EU companies not just established business relationships? Can he outline where he sees that going?

A couple of weeks ago, this committee heard a very compelling presentation on the Unified Patent Court, UPC. We know that a referendum is needed for its introduction but a very strong argument was made by the people who came before us that we should hold the referendum quite soon and maybe as early as next year because there are enormous advantages for Ireland having a UPC. I was impressed by what I heard at that meeting. Will the Tánaiste tell us whether the Government can move quicker on this; are there reasons that we cannot or should not do so and if we do not then will we lose out, as a State, on a number of issues of which the Tánaiste is well aware?