Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will try to keep to the time, which I am very bad at doing. I wanted to speak to the representatives before the committee on this topic for three years so I am very excited they are here.

I just tore back from a PwC Business in the Community event. What was said there is not exactly the same as what the witnesses said. I got a greater sense of urgency at that event than I am getting from them, unfortunately. Scope 3 and small businesses that are unable to feed into big businesses getting their targets right were talked about at the PwC event. It is a major issue. I had a meeting with the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, three years ago who committed a lot of money to helping small businesses to go green and use smart technologies. I have seen very little momentum in three years. I agree with Deputy Bruton. I do not see clear targets.

I will start by asking a few questions. The future-proofing of business is not happening quick enough. Does Enterprise Ireland have the expertise it needs? The girl who was there previously was a lovely woman but she had come from 15 years working for the Irish Farmers' Association, IFA, and had nothing done on climate. I am just worried that we are not getting the right people to help Enterprise Ireland expedite this huge issue. If we are talking about food businesses, a quarter of all the agricultural land in Greece will be underwater over the next ten years. We are not taking this issue seriously in this country. We are one of the most vulnerable countries because we are an island. Our food sector is under significant threat because of climate change. We see today that farmers are unable to harvest 1,000 acres of barley in Cork because of the storms.

This is a climate emergency. Brexit was not an emergency but this is. I do not feel that urgency. Enterprise Ireland stated it did not have targets yet. Why not? We have sectorial targets. I do not see them coming. I do not know why it would not have them. Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs have a huge part to play. I am not saying it is their fault. I just want to know what we need to do to up our game. How does Enterprise Ireland intend to meet sectorial ceilings? Is there a targeted plan? Do the witnesses think Ireland should accommodate data centres that do not have decarbonisation paths, that is, connect to a gas grid? What exactly is being done to support ensuring that happens? We are contradicting ourselves if we allow data centres to be built. We know the story with data centres. The left wing will expand it completely beyond any truth, but let us be honest that data centres have huge energy demands. They should be part of the solutions. Does Enterprise Ireland support them being built? I do not think the future-proofing of businesses is happening quick enough.

Packaging is a huge issue. My background is in environmental education and behavioural change around energy, water, transport and waste. I did that for 12 years full time. I then ended up moving into the big business sector to work in social enterprise around waste reduction. I have seen it. There are great examples of big business doing well. I hate to praise the private sector in some ways because the big ones can afford an expert to come in. They seem to have manifested change in the past three years a lot quicker than we did in the public sector. I really question the LEO targets for public sector supports for small business. For example, in County Clare, the green for micro programme target is 17 of 4,000 SMEs but they have done five so far. That is at a cost of €2,500. The budget was for 17 to happen so where are we going with those targets?

I do not believe that small businesses do not want this or do not have the time because they are too busy. That is no longer acceptable. If they are helped to go green, it saves them money. Small businesses like to save money. If we are not getting the demand for the green for micro programme or GreenStart, Enterprise Ireland is not pitching it right. Something is going on that is not right. Every business is struggling with the cost of energy due to the war in Ukraine and other reasons. Why would they not have time to take advice and get grants? We are doing something wrong if Enterprise Ireland is finding it hard for them to step up and engage with this.

Origin Green is total greenwashing. I have no time for it at all, until we up our game and actually start doing things that make a difference and reduce carbon emissions. It was said that carbon emissions are remaining stable. There is nothing stable about carbon emissions not going down. It is complete instability. Enterprise Ireland has a very important job to do because it engages with all businesses. These are small businesses but collectively are 70% of our workforce and have a huge carbon footprint. It is great that big businesses are doing well, including Business in the Community and PwC or whatever. It is not fair, however, that small businesses are not being enabled to contribute in the same way. Consumer demand is there. If businesses are not climate resilient, they are not economically resilient. That is just a basic fact. In the next five to ten years, any business that is not resilient will close down.