Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests. They have a difficult job and to be fair have been doing it well. Outside the climate discussion, it must be acknowledged that Enterprise Ireland, EI, IDA and the local enterprise offices, LEOs, have done great work. I have stated before in this committee and in the House that we need a framework for the indigenous SME community. The LEOs do a good job. I would like to see an agency similar to EI and IDA for SMEs. I also have sympathy for people in the enterprise sector. It is chicken and egg when we talk about sustainability. It is all right for us to talk about agencies and how they might try to promote greater sustainability among clients but ultimately the customers have a lot do with driving the requirement of sustainability. If two manufacturers are putting steak on a plate, there is no consumer trademark I am aware of to say that one is more sustainable than the other, to enable a consumer to choose to buy it. I hope we will get to something like that but we are a long way from it.

There are major challenges - Mr. Clancy already outlined some of them - especially in the SME space. When I talk about sustainability to owner-operators, the first thing they want to know is how they can achieve it in terms of the bottom line. If it makes sense they will look at it. If does not make sense, how can they put it in place? Mr. Clancy noted the White Paper on enterprise, in which the Government committed to placing decarbonisation on an equal footing with job creation and value creation. I do not see evidence of that. I do not see it in our energy sector, deployment of solar or wind energy or hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO, biogas. These are the discussions we need to start having.

Deputy Bruton is 100% correct about two things, packaging and food waste. I have worked in these areas and seen the amount of plastic. I had breakfast with my wife recently. We took the plastic trays we were forced to buy the breakfast meal in that morning and dumped them. We have to find a way to get plastic out of the supply chain and to try to encourage manufacturers to do so.

I met Mr. Clancy at the ploughing championships. It was fantastic to see the innovation that was happening with the Enterprise Ireland supported companies, especially in the dairy sector. However, this year the dairy sector will see a reduction of €2 billion in farmers' income and at the same time we are asking farmers to be the first point of sustainability. They are working on razor-thin margins. That extends to our export areas as much of the food we produce is exported.

The main areas I would like the witnesses to speak about is whether we have an overarching framework to look at our energy matrix, as regards what we aspire to and what we can deliver in the next three to five years, in terms of the indigenous employment of wind and solar PV. Solar PV is probably the one we can get into the marketplace the quickest. Under the farm scheme for solar energy a maximum grant of 60% of €90,000 is available, which is approximately €54,000 when a farmer spends €90,000. I challenge anyone to find how many farmers can put €90,000 into solar energy and wait to reclaim the grant. That is one simple area that needs to be looked at. HVO is used to try to take diesel out of fleets. It is in the marketplace and we should be trying to use it.

We need a national overarching policy about plastic packaging. We have to get it out of the supply chain across the world. There are substitutes for plastic. They are generally more expensive and are not as durable. That is a problem because customers will take the cheapest option presented to them.

The dominance of the fast moving consumer goods, FMCG, by the large multiples is another area I have raised in the committee many times. They are crippling suppliers. They are at the vanguard of some of the issues we are talking about, in respect of why sustainability is not being brought into consumer spaces because it does not work, it does not pay. Suppliers are being absolutely slaughtered by the price at which products have to be brought into supermarkets. Will the witnesses speak about that?