Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for mentioning the regional enterprise plans, which I neglected to mention in response to Deputy Shanahan. The south-east local authorities, in particular, really embraced the most recent regional enterprise plan. They appointed a programme manager and helped to make it happen. A new plan has been agreed and they are going to be funded. We have €180 million in European funding to fund them. The Ministers of State, Deputies English and Calleary, and I hope to open the first call of funding before the end of the year.

On energy conservation and energy efficiency, the Deputy is absolutely correct. This is a big opportunity to change our ways and embrace energy conservation and efficiency. The question we are asking ourselves is whether what we are experiencing is a shock or a shift. It is generally a shock in terms of the sharp increase in energy prices, but it could also be a shift. We may see that energy prices are going to be higher permanently. I am really impressed at the way the Dutch responded to the oil crisis in the 1970s. In pictures of Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht from the 1970s and 1980s, the cities look like ours. It is all cars, with perhaps a few bus lanes. If you visit those cities now, you see how they changed their ways in the 1970s and embraced cycling, pedestrianisation and permeability. Although this is a different crisis, there is a great opportunity for us to embrace energy efficiency and use energy much better. We need to do that and drive it from a Government level.

I am a big fan of the circular economy, the legislation for which is now complete, as the Deputy will be aware. It is a big legislative change, brought through by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications. I think it is very good legislation, although I hear the Deputy's criticism that it might need to be mainstreamed rather than sidelined, and I will think on that.

I have been trying to embrace it myself a bit. I had my runners refitted and redone a couple of months ago. It did not work so well for my leather shoes but I had two sets of runners renovated instead of buying a new pair. It cost about €40 or €50 and they came back as good as new. Anyone would think they were new. I would have always thrown them out previously. There are many opportunities to reuse materials and create jobs in doing so. I visited the Milk Market in Limerick a couple of weeks ago and a lady who runs a vintage shop was telling me it is now quite common for girls who are looking for their communion dresses not to want fast fashion but instead to want a vintage dress. There are many opportunities to reuse materials and create jobs that we need to embrace fully.

Finally, on the point about stronger workers' rights and higher wages, this is something that worries me because we are putting a great deal of pressure on small employers, through increases in the minimum wage, the move to the living wage, stronger workers' rights and auto-enrolment. History tells us this does not affect employment. We have never had higher wages or so many workers' rights, yet so many people have never been at work. I do not buy this argument, therefore, that low wages and poor workers' rights result in high employment and economic growth. That is clearly not the case and it is not the experience of our nation.

Even so, I am clouded into the fact that if we go too far too fast, we might end up doing things that are perverse. I am concerned that if we go too fast, employers might have to reduce people's hours or lay people off to cover the cost of the increased wages and rights we are imposing on them. That is something we have to keep a close eye on. I still think, as do the Central Bank, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, and the Department of Finance, that notwithstanding all we are doing, total employment will increase again next year. If it does not, we will have to think about this, and one of the good aspects of the Low Pay Commission's report on the living wage is that, although it has set a four-year target to introduce it, it is clear it can go faster or more slowly, depending on economic circumstances, and we have to have regard to that.