Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Fair play to the Deputy. I take it that is the road from Waterford to Cork on the way to the hospital where the Amgen site is. It is not that it is State policy to fill the Amgen site. It is an IDA Ireland-owned site. Like all the IDA Ireland-owned strategic sites, we are trying to get commerce on them and to get multinationals to move in. That is a particularly strategic site because of its location, size and connection to services. If one were to start from scratch, one would spend an awful lot of money to prepare a site for development in the way that particular site has been prepared. That is why it is so strategic. It is why Deputy Stanton raises it with me all the time.

On TBESS, first of all, can I firmly say that this has not been designed to be difficult to save money. We made it clear in the budget last year that up to €1.3 billion could be spent under this scheme split between last year's Estimates and this year's Estimates. It is true that only a fraction of that has been drawn down. We are actively working to understand why. Any scheme that involves spending tens of millions of euro of taxpayers' money has also got to be robust and transparent. Revenue is trying to get the balance right between simplifying the application as much as possible and at the same time getting the information that it needs to make sure that the money is appropriately spent. It is clearly not working in the way that we thought it would and that is why we are reviewing it now in a serious way.

The European Regional Development Fund, ERDF, to be clear, is an €850 million fund by 2027, and it is only getting started. The money that is allocated for this year is on the basis of where these projects are likely to get to in 2023, but it is a very substantial fund over the next four years.

In terms of the disruptive technologies innovation fund, my understanding is all of those projects have to have an SME as part of them.

They often involve a research institute, like a university or some other form of research agency or institute in the State. They are about driving private sector innovation, working with public sector institutions, which is important to point out. On the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, it is only starting to be understood by some just how important this is in respect of Ireland’s role as an EU regulator, as well as a regulator of our own economy, of digital services across the EU. Because of what is called the country of origin principle, under the Digital Services Act, companies which are effectively headquartered in Ireland for their EU operations will be regulated in Ireland for all of their operations across the EU. We need to put the resources and people in place now under the media commission, that is, a digital services co-ordinator and a digital commissioner, to ensure that these bodies are able to do that efficiently. There are timelines, obviously, around that in the months ahead and, ultimately, it has to be fully up and running for all companies by, I believe, February of next year. That is a big project which is under way at the moment from an Irish perspective. It has an Irish impact but also has an international reputational impact on our role across the digital and data space from an EU perspective.

On the LEEF, Deputy Shanahan is correct in that ISME, is not on the LEEF at the moment. The Irish Business Employers Confederation, IBEC, and Chambers Ireland are. ISME is on the National Competitiveness Council. I do not want to respond with a direct answer here to that question on the hoof. I will have a look at it if there is a need for more balance on the LEEF.