Mr. Declan Hughes:

I might have to race through some of those, but I will make a couple of points first. I mentioned the unemployment figures, as did the Deputy. Having been working with stakeholders in the south east for the past ten to 15 years starting with the employment action plan, to get a 3.7% unemployment rate for the first quarter of this year, which is below the State average and below the 5% rate in Dublin, I think is a significant achievement. It is a credit to all of the stakeholders in the south east. We look forward to continuing to work with them on that. We are in quite a different space at the moment in terms of attracting investment into the regions, for all of the reasons the Deputy mentioned. However, combined with the cost of living and access to facilities and so on, we have seen quite a significant number of capital investment projects go into the regions because there is that attractiveness both from a skills perspective, availability of land, etc. We need to ensure we have that for the future. We are committed to ensuring that infrastructure is there.

The national planning framework is really important. The population will increase by approximately 1 million in the coming ten years. We are probably ahead of those projections. That was to 2040. That is an additional 600,000 people in the labour force for whom we have to ensure we have jobs, which will be green, clean energy jobs that will be fully digitalised. We need to ensure we have jobs across all sectors.

I will make a further point. The Deputy mentioned a strong focus on foreign multinationals. However, indigenous companies have had extraordinary success in the past ten years in building scale and going international. The latest figures from the Revenue Commissioners indicate there are now approximately 2,800 Irish-owned multinationals. The Deputy will know names like ICON, Kerry Group and the PM Group. A number of those are now using schemes like the key employee engagement programme, KEEP, which are employee participation schemes and are really important. To bank that point, we are very focused on regional development. We have a unit looking at the nine regional enterprise plans. We will have significant funding coming through the European Regional Development Fund, ERDF. We will also have a new call for the regional enterprise development fund later this year, and the Minister has already announced €145 million as part of that.

On tax issues, our pre-budget submissions have been published, so the Deputy will know our perspective on those. We have worked with colleagues in the Department of Finance on a number of reforms. I characterise it as working to ensure the tax regime is supportive of entrepreneurs and businesses from start up, through scaling, and through to exit or taking some money off the table. The start-up relief for entrepreneurs, SURE, scheme is startup relief for entrepreneurs, which means they can get their income tax back for the past three years. That is really important. There have been amendments to KEEP, and the Minster is looking at it at the moment. The Minister for Finance has said he will continue to ensure that is usable. A number of measures around when tax is actually payable have been introduced, which has increased its attractiveness to employees. The Department of Finance conducted a major review of entrepreneur relief, I think it was 18 months ago. We have been working with it on particular types of startups and initiatives. They are ongoing discussions in areas we are particularly focused on. It is not just on the tax side, and there have also been reforms of the employment investment incentive, EII, scheme, which are very welcome.

We are also working to ensure there is access to finance for companies. We have just completed a successful €175 million seed and venture fund to ensure there is liquidity in the seed and venture capital market with a particular focus on the seed side. We also have a range of future growth loan schemes. One of these was oversubscribed and we have a new scheme coming shortly, which is long-term money that will be helpful for scaling companies. That is helping to make the market and working with the financial providers.

I also pick up the point made about the construction industry, which is changing quite radically at the moment.

It is not just developer-led, but is now bringing in the manufacturing and the off-site construction sector, which is important for a circular economy and for moving to a timber-framed and modularised system. The manufacturing sector in particular needs access to finance for capital investment but also in terms of liquidity. We will have supports and schemes for it.

Some of my colleagues might want to come in on offshore renewables. Last Saturday we launched the Shannon Estuary task force. It is a blueprint for the development of the Shannon Estuary region, but more generally in terms of how we approach the framework conditions that are needed to ensure that we can fully exploit the potential for offshore wind right around the country. I highlight in particular the most recent offshore renewable energy support scheme, which was announced on 11 May. It is probably under-appreciated, but that was a very significant announcement that more than 3 GW of offshore wind capacity is now going to be procured and developed, hopefully by 2028 to 2030. It will be a significant additional capacity of clean renewable energy for the whole enterprise sector as well as for homes. It will power, for example, more than a third of our current demand and a quarter of projected demand by 2030. That is enough to provide energy for 2.5 million homes, so it is a very significant initiative. The key now is to ensure that it is actually delivered, because it will be transformational in terms of the competitiveness of the industry base - that transition from brown to green - but also to ensure then that we can capture new opportunities right around the country. That is the case for new types of energy such as hydrogen but also new businesses whether it is pharma, data centres, manufacturing or the food sector. If there is time, I might ask Mr. Hegarty to come in.