Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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I thank our guests for coming in this morning. We may perhaps need to get our digital strategy better progressed. Regarding the key areas that Mr. Hegarty outlined in the context of the White Paper, I will run through those heads and make a few points. Under the first heading is decarbonisation and offshore wind has been highlighted.

No mention was made of a hydrogen strategy, which I thought would be key to an offshore wind strategy. I know it is not quite this Department's responsibility but I have been raising some concerns about the community dividend. It is totally inadequate to what is being proposed in terms of licensing. I ask the Department to have a look at that before we issue licences later this year. On the south coast a number of large wind farms are being targeted and they are talking about a community dividend of perhaps between €1 million and €1.5 million per year for 15 years on investments of well over €1 billion, which does not seem quite right. There also needs to be an opportunity for people to invest in offshore wind. We need to have a hydrogen strategy. I thought it would be allied to a wind strategy here.

Regarding digitisation, which was also highlighted, very little has been done in terms of referencing. I know artificial intelligence was referenced in the commentary. This is a major issue in terms of digitalisation. We have seen some of the headings around how this is going to disrupt conventional businesses in this country, in particular law. I would have thought there would have been something around that.

Ireland's FDI component was advanced. We all know how important it is. That is largely tax-based. Perhaps the witnesses might comment on that because the main reason we have FDI's here in the first instance is that technically we are very good at manufacturing. Taxation is a huge incentive to come to Ireland for the FDI sector.

Regarding the scaling and strengthening of the Irish-owned exporting section, colleagues mentioned this and we have had various representations. It is incredibly difficult for small indigenous companies to access export markets. The reason companies sail instead of scale is because of the difficulties and it is hard to do without international partners getting access into markets. We are overstating the ability of Government to try to help. What is really needed is the expertise of international players trying to co-ordinate with local business.

In the SME sector, we have two agencies that deal with our companies. We have the IDA that deals exclusively with bringing in foreign direct investment and we have Enterprise Ireland that is totally focused on trying to get companies to scale. We have no umbrella group, a regulatory agency, to look after our SMEs. We need to get a third way if we want to develop the indigenous SME community in Ireland. We need to have an agency specifically dedicated to that.

The ability of foreign direct and domestic companies to do more business is also incredibly challenging. I have spent time in the sector and is very difficult to get Irish indigenous companies on the procurement list for FDI companies because of the specialisms of what they buy and the regulatory standards, etc.

The most glaring point to me, which Deputy Bruton mentioned, is that recycling and reuse needs to be addressed. I would be looking for the jobs target and a hydrogen strategy because talking about wind without talking about developing hydrogen means we are not looking at where other countries are trying to go.