Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very interested in the potential of the circular and sustainable economy as well as the potential transformation that broadband can bring. My question is whether the structures we have are too siloed to plan for the opportunities that are only gradually coming onto the map. It seems to me we are facing a transformational change that will happen very quickly in terms of completely reassessing the way we do our business. Every supply chain will be impacted by a very dramatic change. Are the start-up opportunities being thought through? For example, in construction, if we are to recover waste from sites, we will need to have passporting and a data market to create that space. We will have to try to source people who may use it. It seems there is potential for high-potential start-ups in managing that.

Food Cloud, a company with which the witnesses are probably familiar, has scaled. Fortunately, because it had a good alliance with one of the international chains of supermarkets, it has been able to scale what it is doing. These are the things that are coming our way. Who is thinking about where the opportunities are here? Are there people in our universities who could be looking at the recycling of these construction materials, their data requirements and how to create and sustain markets? Similarly, one could go right through the supply chain to have that.

It worries me that we are all talking about this transformational change but I am not sure who is seeing the opportunities that everyone talks about and who is developing whatever it will take to underpin them. This will not just be a matter of capital but will be a series of things. Are we too siloed, given that Enterprise Ireland is looking at high-potential start-ups for exporting that are predominately in the tech area, etc., when ISIF is looking at the next stage? My slight worry is that we are missing a beat here.