Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I got a bit carried away in the first section. I will try to talk less and let the witnesses talk more. Coming from that event, there was a sense that there is an emergency. I worry about the LEOs. I do not know if they have the capacity. They were working with businesses of between one and ten employees; now that figure is up to 50. I do not know if they have the resources or people needed. That is a big jump. As matters stood, with companies of between one and ten employees, many SMEs did not engage with LEOs. There is something around the PR that is missing. I do not know what it is. They should have in-person events. A lot of it seems to be online stuff. They could offer an event for free that will tell small businesses about the free grants they can get or something like that. "Green for micro" is weird language and people still do not know what circular economy is. There are grants to go green. Another way must be found to sell this. It is all about selling it.

The half-day course sounds much better than a two-day energy audit and I would love to find out more about that. I find it confusing. As my party's spokesperson on enterprise, trade and employment, I focus on supporting SMEs. I still find it tricky to navigate the websites and Departments. Businesses are busy. It has to be made easy for them to understand the supports that are available. Why are targets like 17 for the entire year so low in the LEOs? Is it a capacity issue?

I saw the descriptions of the companies that can apply to be the mentor to carry out that auditing. It was far removed from any real expertise in carbon reduction, energy or climate. I found that quite worrying. I got it sent to me by somebody in the LEOs. The companies that carry out the mentoring are not allowed to advertise that they have done it. That might encourage other people. It is just a list of random companies. None of them jumped out at me. I had no clue about any of them. Why would I pick one of them to come into my place for two days? I have never heard of them. If I heard them say they had done so and so, that might be different. I do not know why they are not allowed to advertise. I am not sure what that is about. Maybe the LEOs can advertise them.

Packaging is still a huge issue. Friends of mine have an organic gardening business. They supply vegetables and it is killing them that they have to wrap everything. They are organic growers with 60 acres. They have worked really hard, starting with 2 acres, and are supplying huge businesses all over the place. There is something wrong there. Even if the packaging is biodegradable, recyclable and vegetable-based, we all know that is a joke at this stage. We have to reduce plastic, as previous speakers have said. I do not know where that has to come from but we need to help Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs to do it.

The LEOs mentioned the circular economy. I have no faith in our local authorities pioneering that. It is not their expertise, or their job per se; even if it is, there is nothing really happening. There might be the odd stand randomly thrown up around the place to say they care about SDGs and the circular economy, but it is not happening. The environmental awareness offices do not have the capacity. I do not know if the new climate offices have the expertise or capacity either. I worry and I would like to see something happening because we are three years into this Government with a lot of funding gone into going green and I do not see it happening.

I did not get an answer on the data centres. Is Enterprise Ireland supporting data centres that are not going to be part of the solution around energy demand, district heating and the gas system? I would like to see more sectoral targets come down to help the small business sector.