Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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First, I congratulate Mr. Carey on his appointment and wish him very well. Like Deputy Stanton I thank him for bringing his very substantial range of skills to bear on this. I would also like to join Mr. Carey in thanking Terence O'Rourke for his service before him. According to the back of my envelope, in his time, employment in Enterprise Ireland companies went from 140,000 to 220,000, which was no mean feat. That said, I am not expecting Mr. Carey to top that because we are living in a somewhat different environment.

Traditionally, it was all about driving export diversification and employment. Is Mr. Carey's new strategy going to be a significant shift in emphasis? I would be interested to hear his comments on that.

The second area I am interested in is sustainability. When Enterprise Ireland was in here last with the LEOs we heard that sustainability is the key to competitiveness. The impression I get is that to some degree it has not become that central yet to the strategy of Enterprise Ireland and that it is a good add-on as opposed to a core strategy. I am interested in hearing Mr. Carey's comments on whether we can nail down the opportunities that are going to come from a net-zero world and how that is going to shift the environment for enterprise companies now that we are looking at a five-year perspective. It seems that there will be a radical change in that period and I would like to get his grasp on that.

The third question I would like to ask is whether Mr. Carey thinks it would be timely to do a review of the start-up environment in Ireland from an Enterprise Ireland perspective. When I was there, our backs were to the wall and start-ups were a very important ingredient and we did a strategy on them. It is a complex world. It would be interesting to get Enterprise Ireland to do an assessment of high-potential start-ups, HPSUs, which are the iconic brand, to see if they are really delivering when we look at them over a timescale. How are spin-outs from our research centres doing? How do we compare to others who are funding research in a similar way? How do we support the more mom and pop start-up as opposed to the high-potential start-ups – the gazelles or whatever they call them? I am talking about going back and looking at the elements that make up a successful entrepreneurship culture, be it education, innovation, markets, finance or access to venture capital. It would be timely to have a fresh look at that, especially with supply chain reviews and a little bit of nearshoring and whatnot that perhaps we are going to have to look more to our own resources.

I am interested in hearing Mr. Carey's view of the regional enterprise strategies, which again was one innovation we brought in when we were there with our backs to the wall in enterprise terms. It seems that there is a bit of a gap, which is a view Deputy Stanton also expressed. The LEOs are beavering away at a certain level but they do not have the expertise.

Is there a case for developing regional hubs under an Enterprise Ireland brand to enhance the work of the regional enterprise strategies, which bring together education and training, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and so on? Is there something missing that we could see evolve as Enterprise Ireland looks at its strategy for the next five years?