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

Like others, I congratulate the Minister on his appointment and, indeed, on his grasp of a complex brief in a very short time.

It seems to me that a lot of Irish business is facing a whirlwind of changes. We had the financial crisis, Covid-19, the Ukraine war, digitisation, AI and the climate crisis. This is certainly wreaking huge changes in business models, consumption patterns, supply chains and geopolitics, and none of these are over in my view. We continue to see massive changes that will change the landscape within which Irish business operates. The key in my view is agility and adaptability. They are going be at a premium with within Government, but more especially within business.

We need to build the capability of business to manage change. It is disappointing to see the very low level of take-up in respect of some of the Government's schemes. It has now doubled their value. That is welcome. The take-up is still low, however. I suggest that the Minister consider a sectoral structure for driving transformational change within sectors. Therefore, instead of looking at individual schemes, such as green, digital and online vouchers, the Government must recognise that there are sectors that need to be transformed and it is not happening in the present model.

I have a particular interest in the circular economy. My belief is that Irish business has not cottoned on to the innovative changes that will be required by the circular economy. It puts a requirement to think afresh about design, packaging, processes, material selection and repair. Huge changes are needed in the way sectors are organised if we genuinely embrace the circular economy. Product as a service, for example, will become changed. We will see a change in the way we handle transport, to give just one example. I urge the Minister as I have urged his predecessors, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Minister with responsibility for the circular economy to adopt this. I do not see that while there is consultation, there is not the real drive.

My second question comes from a bit of work I have done. Some 50% of Irish workers would like to work beyond their obligatory retirement age. The breakdown is 60% of women and 40% of men. It seems to me that the Department is still promoting the idea of a contractual fixed end where the private sector can demand that people stop working. Is it not time to start promoting positive, age-friendly workplaces? I know there are proposals within the Department.

On the issue of the high street, we hear much about the problems that are afflicting hospitality and other sectors. I would be interested to hear a little more. Their common diagnosis seems to be that it is a demand problem and that we need to reduce the VAT rate. I wonder whether that is the case or are there deeper problems at work here?

That brings me to another question. There is a €2 billion surplus in the National Training Fund. We do very little lifelong learning or transformational investment in skills. It seems to be caught by spending rules. Is that something we could crack? It does seem that at a time when we need to build new capability in our workforce, we have money locked up.

I am very interested in regional development. When I was in the Department, we set up the regional enterprise strategies. The Minister has been doing some work on clustering in his Department. Will we begin to see a shape of clusters that could be associated with different regions? It does go back to the Senator's point about the capability of the LEOs to drive the sorts of people who are now coming to them and who will expect support in this much more complicated area.

Another question I have relates to the problem we have with delivering infrastructure, particularly for renewables. One of the sectors caught up in that is the ICT sector in light of the moratorium on data centres. How can we move that on? It seems that we risk a long-term, crucial sector because of short-term constraints. Can we manage that better? Mr. Michael O'Leary is suggesting the establishment of a Department with responsibility for infrastructure. I do not know if that is an option.

If the Minister is doing disruptive innovation, could the Department or the Government to think about doing work in the health arena. We have the capacity for predictive medicine, preventative medicine, monitoring and managing long-term conditions. We have all the ingredients to be leaders in that when it comes to ICT and medical devices. We ought to try to bring those forces together to do something very interesting in this sector, which could become a traded capacity if we do it right.