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

My first question is about the carbon budget allocated to the industrial sector. How much of it has been used up? Will the roadmaps the Government will publish get us back on track? That is the fundamental question.

My second question relates to the poor take-up of green initiatives by enterprise generally. The local enterprise offices, LEOs, Enterprise Ireland, EI, Skillnet and so on were before the enterprise committee. Typically, approximately 1% of their company base is engaging with their different programmes. If they are all different companies, it probably comes to 3% when they are totted up across the agencies, but plainly, as the Minister acknowledged in his statement, the idea that becoming sustainable is the key to long-term competitiveness is not getting through. These companies will be left behind in addition to the country failing to meet its climate targets. How will the Minister kick-start change in that area? Will he use conditionality? More is needed than what is happening now. Some kind of institutional shift is probably needed.

My third question is perhaps part of a solution to the second. I have long advocated for circular compacts, especially in the food and construction sectors, which would allow us to address issues in design, choice of materials, process and power, packaging and plastic, retail, presentation, consumption patterns, repair opportunities and recovery for reuse. It goes the whole nine yards, whereas typically the Department only looks at the emissions from manufacturing. In reality, the enterprise sector has a massive footprint throughout the supply chain on emissions patterns and opportunities to avoid emissions. Would the Minister be willing to commit to developing such a compact in the food and construction sectors? The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is open to it. It seems to be a real opportunity to shift the ground and it also aligns with the new European obligation to report on supply chain impact. The Government will have a series of opportunities to sustain the interest of people in the sector so they make these shifts. Those are my three questions.