Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The key question is, is Enterprise Ireland taking far too narrow a view of the sustainability challenge? Take food, for example. Some 40% of our emissions come from food globally, which is about 30 million tonnes. Enterprise Ireland is at the pivotal point. It represents food processors and supports them. They are key to all of the opportunities. Apart from just on-site emissions, there is food waste, which is 1 million tonnes. That is another 3 million tonnes of carbon emissions from food waste alone. There is the capacity of the food sector overall to reduce its emissions. Premium payments to farmers from suppliers are needed if we are to see some of that momentum built. There are labelling and packaging issues around how food is presented to consumers, how easy it is to avoid discards and whether there are packaging-free approaches. More fundamentally, are we in trouble in the long term on Origin Green if we do not become leaders in moving the food sector from practices today? They are probably fine internationally but if we want to be competitive in ten years' time, this sector has to see very significant changes. Does Enterprise Ireland not need to have sectoral roadmaps, for the food sector particularly, and probably other sectors, that look at the whole supply chain? I think Mr. Magee got it in a nutshell when he said that the key driver of competitiveness in the long run will be sustainability. We seem to be locked into piecemeal approaches, looking at individual companies and their potential and looking at individual farmers but what is needed is like what has been done in Holland. It put together a sectoral compact for what it calls the circular economy, which looks beyond just carbon emissions to all other supply chain issues. Has Enterprise Ireland given any serious thought to putting that together? It is the missing ingredient - a bigger picture that any company coming to Enterprise Ireland works within and any company dealing with farmers perceives this as the direction of travel. It makes it much easier for everyone. It also does not involve the finger-pointing blame being shaken at the farming community or at someone else. The reality is that we as consumers have a role to play, as do producers and farmers. We need to get that sorted together.

Has Enterprise Ireland identified low-hanging fruit in this sector? There are things like smart controls, shallow retrofits and food waste avoidance - the commercial sector is appalling at food waste. The business sector is worse than consumers, which is frightening. There is transport transformation, switching to lower-emission deliveries like An Post has done with zero-emission deliveries. There is low-hanging fruit that Enterprise Ireland could go with to its client base and create an expectation that within one or two years or whatever, that these things ought to be done and any company that wants to be an Origin Green-type company ought to be doing them. We need to build momentum around this. There are too many little capsules that we are now adopting, trying to get farmers to do one thing or some company to do some energy saving but the bigger picture piece is missing. As used to be said in exam questions, "discuss".