Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Development of Indigenous Irish Enterprise: Discussion
Mr. Leo Clancy:
I will start on that and hand over to Mr. McElwee shortly. As I mentioned, pillar 4 of our newly launched strategy includes a focus on decarbonisation of our clients and making their approach more sustainable. What is more exciting to me is the focus on building a green economy offering for Irish companies exporting into global markets. We are incredibly well placed on that. There are some very ambitious targets at a national level. The ESB strategy was launched on Monday, which again doubles down on that. We are engaged with the ESB with regard to its plans at Moneypoint. We are engaged with actors throughout the State on how we can help amplify that opportunity. We are seeing a very exciting pipeline of innovative companies come to us through our high potential start-up unit and some of the research and innovation projects we are seeing in electrification and other areas. There are significant opportunities for us.
Green hydrogen is another technology that is at a very early stage. Ireland certainly has a role to play in that, given the abundance of our offshore wind resource. I am very excited about this. It will be an absolutely key priority for our agency in the coming years to focus on maximising the innovative capacity of Irish firms to play in this global market. I will hand over to Mr. McElwee for a follow-on comment.