James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Today, the select committee is required to consider the Revised Estimate for the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment for 2025, which was referred to the committee on 17 June 2025 in according with Dáil Standing Order 222(2).

I welcome the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Deputy Peter Burke, and his officials to the meeting. The committee appreciated the comprehensive briefing material provided by the Department on today's discussion. This has been circulated to members of the committee. The Revised Estimate for 2025 provides the Department with a gross allocation of €1,306,100,000 for this year. This is broken down between €594 million in current funding and €712 million in capital funding. I propose we publish the opening statement and briefing provided by the Minister on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed.

I now invite the Minister to make his opening statement.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I can go through the detailed statement or members could ask questions to put into the record, whatever they wish.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Is that agreeable to members? Given the voting situation, it is a good proposal.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, considering that.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Will the Minister read the short version?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I can give a few highlights. We have a significant Vote in the Department this year. We have taken in responsibility for tourism, which is a significant change. It is important to have the Department of tourism at the heart of the Department of enterprise because it gives huge opportunities to our SME sector to absorb the huge capacity and challenge we have in upskilling many businesses.

Members will be familiar with the IDA Ireland investment. We got our mid-term results last week in which we saw a 37% increase in investments won by the agency, which is significant. On sustaining jobs, we are at approximately 302,000, which is 11% of the labour force and that has been static for the past few years. There is a big challenge in maintaining it and attracting new investment.

Our indigenous sector is also performing quite strongly. Enterprise Ireland published its results for 2024 in the past ten days as well. We saw approximately €36.75 billion of exports, which is up 6%. It is a strong performance from the sector and we are on target to realise the five-year strategy, which hopes to get our exports up to €50 billion with approximately 275,000 employees or €2.2 billion already in that expenditure and 1,000 new start-ups.

We also saw the metrics for start-ups last week, which have been strong. They are on an upward trajectory and a lot of exciting things are happening in that space, which speaks well for the enterprise economy. I have worked hard to do things more simply and lightly and faster. That has been the trajectory of the Department. We have a cost of business advisory forum where all the stakeholders and regulatory agencies are under one roof trying to make progress in that sector. It will look at the interoperability of regulators with one another and how they engage with the SME sector.

We also established a small business unit in the Department of enterprise, which is now up and running and will be supporting the sector, trying to ensure we have reasonable conditions attached to the supports we offer. We are trying to get the enterprise sector to embark on digitisation and sustainability programmes, which will be two key tenets of the SME and indigenous economy into the future.

I have highlighted a few snapshots.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for the condensed briefing. I appreciate it.

I now invite members to contribute. First on the list is Deputy Brennan, the committee's Leas-Chathaoirleach.

Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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The Minister is welcome.

I will be straight up. I will be using my tourism head. I am hugely concerned for the industry. I am looking at the figures dropping and what people are spending dropping and I am concerned about where we are going. In 2019, we had 10.9 million visitors and in 2023 we had 6.3 million visitors. In any other industry, those figures would simply be shocking. The reason for them in my experience is rising costs. There is uncertainty in the global economic situation but that is being emphasised too much. I am looking at the figures for Poland and other countries in Europe and they are increasing. There is a perceived lack of value in Ireland. I would not mind getting a response to that.

Second, on the industry in general, how many hotels have been built outside Dublin in the past ten years? I asked a question about that, but I still do not have a correct answer. I know it is under a dozen. It is simply not viable to build a hotel in the current economic climate. I am here today appealing for a mechanism we can work with. The developers are there. I am looking at a project in Courtown, County Wexford. Planning permission has been applied for but I spoke to the developer and he is uneasy about going forward with the project because he says the cost of building a hotel is uneconomical in the climate. I spoke to another hotelier in Wexford town who waited for planning permission for approximately 15 years. He got planning permission, but in the end he bought another hotel because it was ten times less hassle and half the cost. We have an issue. We have to get tourists. We have the issue of getting the numbers up again, but we also have to increase the product, especially outside Dublin. I would be interested in the Minister's points on that.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Deputy's experience in the sector. It is critical that the sector is now under the Department of enterprise because there is a huge amount of work we can carry out to support it.

I will point out that 2024 was a record year for tourism as regards visitor numbers. The North American market was up 19% alone, with €2.2 billion of spend. This year has been challenging and one of the key reasons is the airport cap. We had a reduction of approximately 10% in seats until May. We will now see, I hope, 11% additional seats in the North American market. Three new gateways, namely, Indianapolis, Nashville and Detroit, have come on stream. To put figures behind that, potentially we will have 1.5 million additional seats in the marketplace for the last three quarters of the year, which should be significant.

The vision I have is first to refresh a strategy for tourism with a number of components to it. The first is to build up the SME sector. We need to look at tertiary education as well in order that people can have valuable, viable careers and build up the authenticity Ireland has. That is important for the sector. We will try to move away from State contracts, which we have been doing. We are down to 7% at this time from a high of more than 20% at one point. We are making steady progress in that. At this time, 7,050 bed spaces in hotels are under construction, 5,000 of which are in Dublin. It is an area we need to see significant progress in because we are all too aware of how much of a challenge it is in the value proposition or offering of many provincial towns for the commercial equation to work. We will therefore be having discussions across the Government in connection with that.

Another ideas I have is to develop a national all-Ireland food strategy. We have seen significant pressure in the European market, but North America is holding up well and the UK is potentially also. It is the European market that is under pressure. We need additional value for it because there is a huge challenge in ensuring our food offering is strong. We can do a lot more by having an all-Ireland food strategy.

The business events strategy was launched this year as well. It is another important sector in which we can make significant progress. I will expand the remit of Fáilte Ireland to include a responsibility for developing the restaurant sector. Heretofore, it was exclusively focused on hotels. If we widen its ambit, it will develop the business model and the key attractiveness of that sector. We can do a lot of work there. It will have key performance indicators at the heart of tourism sector for the first time. That is the journey I would like to bring it on.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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We have to suspend. Unfortunately, there is a vote. We will have to return after the vote. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The next speaker will be Deputy Clendennen, followed by Deputies Conway-Walsh, Dolan, Donnelly, Gogarty and Lawlor. That is the order.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy Clendennen.

John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach and I thank the Minister for joining us today along with his officials. I recognise the work he has done over the past 12 or 15 months since he took up the role of Minister in this portfolio. He has definitely changed the direction of travel for the better, in terms of being pro-enterprise. He recently introduced many good initiatives on employment, the minimum wage and conditions. What we now need to do is focus on viability, cutting the cost of doing business, increasing our competitiveness and ensuring we maintain the appeal of getting into business today so it is an attractive proposition. Some of the figures the Minister has shared with us today very much reflect this.

When I look at the statistics the Minister has shared, and what has happened with the increased cost of business, ICOB, grant and other supports that were there in a healthy economy, what the business sector wants today is not supports but certainty. We need to ensure that whatever structures are put in place will be there for the future and not only for one budget or one budget cycle. We need to ensure they are there for the longer term.

With regard to access to finance, and Deputy Brennan mentioned this with regard to the development of hotels in particular, there is a challenge in accessing finance at present. It is proving increasingly difficult. Only for the likes of the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and the initiatives there, we would be in a worse position. We need to look at this issue in particular.

I am a keen advocate of a 9% VAT rate but we need to be cognisant of the fact it will benefit the food and hospitality sectors. Broader retail and wet pubs, for want of a better phrase, need attention. What we really need is support for bricks and mortar to ensure retail remains vibrant. If we can get it right at the lowest of levels it will filter to every level, from local enterprise offices to Enterprise Ireland to IDA Ireland.

Will the Minister provide clarity on enforcement of the platform on short-term lets? The remit is with Fáilte Ireland but I ask the Minister to give clarity on this. The sector also needs clarity on planning permission and where this sits in terms of standards.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Clendennen for his kind comments. Absolutely it is important that we support the enterprise sector. I was very much aware when I came into the job that two thirds of all employment in our communities are in our SME sector. Small family businesses drive much of our economic activity. It is critical that we ensure we reduce the regulatory burden placed on them over a number of years and that we give them supports to change the model they operate.

Deputy Clendennen is right to point out that ICOB and the power up grants are once-off interventions. How we make businesses sustainable over a short- to medium-term horizon is the challenge for the Government. In terms of digitalisation and sustainability, we have done a large amount of work to provide supports and to reduce conditions attached to them for smaller businesses.

For a deli attached to a shop, it could reduce its power bill by €1,500 a year if they upgrade their lighting, refrigeration, kitchens and so on under an energy efficiency grant. It is important that we give significant support there, as well as for digitalisation. There is also a huge amount of work going on in the area of defamation law and retail crime on the part of my other colleagues in the Government. I want to acknowledge that.

On the short-term letting Bill, the register will have to be implemented by 20 May 2026. That is the target deadline we are referring to. Fáilte Ireland will be the competent authority which will maintain the register. My job as Minister with responsibility for tourism is to develop the register on which all the entities will be placed. They will be given their unique number and that is how enforcement will take place. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne, will come forward with a national planning statement which will govern the rules the Deputy is referring to. I am advised that he will do that approximately by September. That will go through the legislative process here with the short-term letting Bill, and give people a chance to bring in witnesses and form part of and add value to the legislation. At the moment it has been cited that 10,000 is the population value that initially went through Cabinet for the threshold for planning permission but there is a lot of work to continue on that. What I would say to the committee members is to stay part of the process. We will work through it together. We are trying to find a balance between one of the very significant challenges of our generation, housing, and ensuring that we maintain a vibrant tourism sector. It is important that we work together to get that balance.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister. There is much in his statement that I agree with in terms of the intentions he has to address some of the issues. As always, the proof will be in the pudding in terms of implementation. On the action plan for competitiveness and productivity, the Minister says it is going to be ready in the next couple of weeks. Was it to be ready for the summit which took place earlier this week?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The summit is where the challenge report from the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council is presented to Government. Our action plan on competitiveness will be the response to the NCPC's report. Essentially, Dr. Frances Ruane has the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, which is supported by a lot of Government Departments and has independent members. They provide a challenge report to Government every year. I escalated the response to that last year. We had our first competitive summit, with a wide range of Ministers and the Taoiseach meeting together to get a laser focus on the issue of competitiveness. I am very much aware of international pressures and where we are in terms of the index and the independent competitive yearbook. We have a lot of work to do, particularly on infrastructure. We have our plan completed now. We are waiting for the final negotiations of the national development plan which I expect to happen over the coming weeks. Once they have concluded, it is important we come forward with our action plan for competitiveness at that point. It needs to have clout and money behind it. That is the critical thing. I want it to have credibility. It is important we have the NDP first.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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On the summit, is there any room for this committee on that or how do we feed into it? We have the national economic dialogue, for example and there was a good opportunity for the finance committee, which I was on, to feed into that. What is the role of this committee in relation to that summit? There is a lot of expertise in different areas on this committee in terms of business.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We had a consultation period on the action plan for competitiveness. We had a lot of submissions from different sectors including people from various political backgrounds. We have responded to them in the plan. The committee will have its role in holding our feet to the fire in relation to the ambition that is set out across the 80 recommendations, with clear timelines, and the Departments responsible for the delivery of same. There is a lot of work on which the committee's engagement will be helpful as we progress through the plan.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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That is good. I welcome the Minister's confirmation of the reclassification process for the increased cost of doing business and the power-up grants. Many people in my own constituency in Mayo felt they were unfairly left out of those schemes. How much of those grants was left unclaimed?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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It is not that they were left unclaimed. Everything that went forward that was correctly processed was paid. These are cohorts that did not indicate which sector they were from during the application process. That is one of the key areas the appeal mechanism will respond to. We had to set up a separate process for the 31 local authorities to administer the appeal, which is very significant. We hope to have that open in the next couple of weeks.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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It is very important in the design of these grants that businesses or whoever they are intended for are involved in their design so we get it right from the beginning. Is there going to be a publicity campaign around the reclassification to ensure there is nobody left behind who might be eligible for them?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The local authorities are aware of the individuals who are going through the appeal process. To be very clear, this is not for new entrants. These are people who already were in the system. I would genuinely say the mechanism was designed to make it easy for businesses to draw down. Over the calendar year 2024, we got close to €0.5 billion out to businesses up and down the country, which was extraordinary. Some local authorities were frankly better than others in administering it and working with businesses on the ground but I think it was a very strong success. Like any scheme, there will always be challenges where someone makes a claim that they were not aware of it or did not get the correct advice when they went through the mechanism to apply. We want to respond as best we can to the many representations we have received from the sectors in respect of those cohorts. We will be doing that in the next couple of weeks.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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Particularly as we incentivise actions in terms of climate change, I was talking to the Irish Hotels Federation today and they were talking about the restrictions that are put on the sizes. I was struck by the cap on the number of employees for certain businesses. The more emissions you have, the more you want to reduce them by. They should be included in incentives as well. It should not just be treated as though they were dead weight and cannot be eligible. It is something for us all to consider in terms of the end outcome we want to achieve. It is worth making an investment there in terms of climate change and what we need to do.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Thank you, Deputy. I am conscious of time and the voting block. We will proceed immediately to Deputy Dolan of Fianna Fáil.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the Minister being here with us this evening to run through the revised Estimates. I have a few quick questions I want to run through. Can the Minister explain the rationale behind any increases or reductions in funding for the local enterprise offices? How does that align with the Government's targets for SME growth and regional job creation?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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There should be no reduction in expenditure for them. Critically, we are very much focused on making things simpler for all our local enterprise offices across the country. We have 31 of them. We started a simplification process and looked at the service level agreement between Enterprise Ireland and our LEO sector for the many schemes they administer. In my view, in some of them there were erroneous conditions. We are now working on a memorandum from Government setting out a new service level agreement. We are also trying to have conditionality reduced for any event that is small in expenditure but can have a significant impact. I referred earlier to the energy efficiency scheme. I have seen examples where small businesses have reduced energy bills by €1,200 or €1,400 per month.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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For businesses that did not qualify for the increased cost of business grant, or those that were not aware of the rates rebate grant the year before, did not apply or were not aware of previous grants, will there be an opportunity to avail of the increased cost of business grant?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Unfortunately not. I would point out that we opened the scheme a number of times. We embarked upon a significant media campaign on local radio and there was a national campaign as well. It is always going to be the case that people get left behind. I do not want to see anyone being left behind but unfortunately it does happen. The critical thing is that sometimes when we have expenditure like this, speed trumps perfection and you do not get everything right. On the broad thrust, we got close to half a billion out in a year in three different iterations of the scheme. We really specialised in hospitality and retail towards the end of it, which was very important.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Overwhelmingly the scheme was a success and was welcomed by businesses.

Obviously, what businesses want from us now is to ensure the landscape is transformed in the long run. As we are seeing with the budget, one-off measures cannot go on forever but we need to transform the landscape in which businesses are operating. How much of the capital allocation is specifically earmarked for innovation and research and development supports in 2025? How does that compare with last year's outturn?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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There is an increase. As an economy, we have increased research and development spend by more than 400% in the last decade. This shows where we are going at the moment. If you look at the IDA last year, it spent €1.8 billion on research and development. It is looking for €7 billion over the next five years. All those figures are up. There are record levels of research and development in the economy. For this year, there is €215 million in capital funding.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Is there any funding allocated to address the barriers that small firms face in transitioning to green and digital practices, especially given the low uptake rates of these schemes to date? Has the Minister any thoughts on that and is there any consideration for that in the Estimates?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. That is why we have the Grow Digital portal, which we are trying to encourage people to use to access the sustainability portal and the digitalisation one which will essentially carry out an audit of their whole businesses. It will then come forward with the supports that are required. We specifically set up the national enterprise hub, which has 250 supports across 29 Departments and Government agencies, with an operator at the end of the phone. I know businesses' most valued resource is their time so we want to get back to them within 24 hours and advise them as to the key areas they should be focusing on. There are a number of grants for both digitalisation and sustainability because both are two key areas that can lower the cost base or bring in additional revenue for firms. As I said, when we renegotiate the service level agreement with our local enterprise offices, that will give us an opportunity to make things a little easier for businesses as well.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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There is another vote taking place in the Dáil so we will suspend and then return.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy Eoin Hayes.

Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister for coming in. I welcome him back. I thank all of his officials for being here as well. To start off, I welcome the level of investment the Minister has put into regulation and into the regulatory bodies like the Workplace Relations Commission and the office of the Corporate Enforcement Authority and those kinds of areas. I really welcome the clustering strategy. It is really critical for the economic model as we go forward. As I said to the Minister's officials last week when I met them informally, in some ways the economic model of austerity was saved by the multinationals and the multinational employment that came through. I hope that continues into the next level of volatility we may see in the next phase. However, my fear is that we will not and we will have to turn a lot more to the indigenous economy and invest in indigenous communities and startups. In that vein, I highlight a few things that have come through in reviewing all the materials provided. The IMD report that referred to us as being fourth in 2024 puts us as seventh in 2025 and it highlights the domestic economy being in 33rd place, basic infrastructure being in 44th place and prices being in 46th place. Therefore, there is a problem in the indigenous economy and there is a problem in how we are focusing on it. When we look at the growth and sustainability loan scheme, which is a European Investment Bank scheme for SMEs, it looks like only 49 companies out of a target of 1,300 availed of it. Then when we look at the high-potential startups, we still have the same level since 2022. The numbers - about 12 - engaged in research are the same from 2022 so it is effectively stagnant.

As former Deputy Brendan Griffin said, the tourism numbers have gone down from 10 million to 6 million.

Lastly, when looking specifically at jobs, the gross number across the different client companies is approximately 29,000 and the net number, according to the annual employment survey, is 6,800. That is a drop of 23,000 gross. I received replies to some parliamentary questions recently, which stated liquidations had gone up year-on-year in the past two years, as well as some significant redundancies having come through too.

The LEO stated hiring is at 2,500 out of a target of 3,000. I am trying to paint a picture here of some significant weakness in the indigenous economy. When we look at those figures and areas where there needs to be a take-up of finance or investment or where we need to make more progress with high potential start-ups, we are actually doing very well. It is important for us to consider this in the context of the budget and how we will go forward. In that vein, I would like an answer from the Minister on what his reaction would be to this. Initially, for June 2024 and 2025, the cost of business grant was €400 million. That has been taken out of the budget and has effectively gone down. This would be approximately €5,300 for SMEs, based on the Minister's figures. However, the amount we are spending on consultants and policy research has gone up by €500 million. Is that correct?

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should be careful on time.

Eoin Hayes (Dublin Bay South, Social Democrats)
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Yes, I have just two minutes. My apologies, it is €5 million. I am concerned we are not putting sufficient resources into the indigenous economy and are not sufficiently focusing on it. The temporary partial guarantee scheme has been halved from €15 million to €7 million and the science and technology development programme capital allocation is down. I wish to get a sense from the Minister how he will reinvigorate the indigenous economy when thinking about the coming budget.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his questions.

There are currently 302,000 supported jobs in the foreign direct investment sector, which is approximately 11% of our labour force. It is interesting to note the top ten indigenous firms currently employ 450,000 people. This demonstrates the internationalisation of our indigenous economy and how much it has grown. If we look at the metrics through Enterprise Ireland, its latest report shows €36.75 billion in exports, up 6% from last year and has continued to increase in recent years, and 234,000 jobs, which is again up by more than 15,000 in the past 12 months. We have a target to get to 275,000 in the next four years.

We have seen a record level of research, development and innovation, RD and I, expenditure with €2.2 billion earmarked over the next four years. The strategy I mentioned and referenced earlier aims to increase our start-ups in that space. We have a quarter of billion euro in a seed and venture capital fund, which significantly backs that sector. We had a strategic review of the fund and we expect to leverage very significant funding in the future. This week, Fenergo announced 500 new jobs. This was our first Europe unicorn back in 2019. Aerogen got a top award in the US economy for ventilation and aerosol mechanisms. We have many good news stories and I am backing them up with evidence. Our indigenous economy is growing through Enterprise Ireland. The committee can see we have put 90,000 new jobs into the economy in the past year. That is 90,000 families with an additional income. The best route to realise your ambition in life is a job and that is one thing we are focused on growing in the indigenous economy. That is why we have brought forward a raft of initiatives to try to do things more simply and to support it more.

One of the key things we are redeveloping is the Act underpinning IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland in our environmental aid scheme, which will assist them in sustainability. We have €300 million currently ring-fenced in capital expenditure for that sector, which will enhance growth there. We saw the huge amount of work Diageo put in which has been a lighthouse in that sector on the journey to get to net carbon zero. For one of the most iconic brands in our country, it can demonstrate how we can go on that journey. It sets a strong example that can be replicated. We are giving finance to it which will be shared across the industry and sector.

We are facing challenges but I robustly point out, on foot of the evidence I have put before the committee, there are many good news stories in the indigenous sector. It is strong in employment, RD and I expenditure, new start-ups coming in and those that are scaling up. There will be a big challenge with the US and getting early funding into the tech side of some of the start-ups. We are under pressure in that sphere but we want to change that.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister and Deputy Hayes. We now proceed to Deputy McCormack.

Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister and his team for coming into us this evening. I said it to him previously on the floor of the Dáil that the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment has done a fantastic job in recent years. It is why we are where we are with regard to the great numbers we have in employment and indigenous industries. The likes of the IDA have also been working hard to bring in foreign direct investment into the country and what we gain as a result of that - our corporation taxes and what that allows us to do. As a warning, we all know what we are facing into as regards the headwinds, US economy and tariffs. Should anything happen with our FDI industry and businesses, our tax take could reduce at a very quick pace, which would leave our public finances in a serious state.

Regarding the process we are going through here, when I discuss the United States, what has happened over there and the opportunities available to us, I am talking about the research and development. We have put money into research and development with companies but we must try to match that research and development with new companies coming in and pair that with the process to try to have more products made here as well.

While the Department is not in charge of the National Training Fund, more work needs to be done between his Department and the Minister for higher education, Deputy Lawless, to try to put more money into digital skills because that is where we are currently with the onset of AI and the way business will change.

With regard to the cost of doing business, right across every sector, whether it is in the FDI companies, indigenous companies, including SMEs, the cost of doing business is extraordinarily high in this country. I have huge worry - and I am not the only one - about our competitiveness in this area. We need to do something. Energy costs are huge and if we look at what is happening in Germany, for example, it is proposing to do subvention in energy costs for bigger businesses to make them more sustainable and to make them thrive. We should be looking at something similar for our businesses here. As other members said, it is not something we need to have on a yearly basis; it needs to go in permanently.

We should be trying to help companies like Aer Lingus. Companies coming into the country have support from the likes of the IDA to find premises and there is funding there for further research. Depending on what part of the country they go to, there is also funding for employees but we do not seem to be looking after bigger indigenous companies. Something may come across the table to Aer Lingus, which may need support from ourselves and the Department, to the company to take on, work with it and add an extra service from the airports here in Dublin and others around the country.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should be careful on time.

Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Defence and security is currently talked about a lot given what is happening around the world. There are trade opportunities. When I talk about defence and security, I am talking about digital defence, security and protecting what we have. The opportunities are there and I hope more money is put into working on that.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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The division bells have just rung. The Minister may reply and we might also squeeze in Deputy Gogarty. We have eight minutes of bells so we will keep going.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy McCormack and I acknowledge his work on IDA investment in County Offaly. We had many discussions on Cardinal Health, which quite rightly links in with the issues he is raising. One of the key things in our FDI sector is if we get research, innovation and investment into it from an early stage, particularly those companies at risk, at a lower margin or are in danger of being outpriced, they can get new processes, product lines and better innovation.

That will enhance their productivity. We have done that on a number of occasions. We are working hard in the Deputy’s sector to try to improve that. We have had a huge amount of investment in FDI sector over the past number of years. It is important, as he quite rightly points out, that our action plan for competitiveness will drive costs down. We have a new life sciences strategy coming forward. This will be key to supporting our pharma, med-tech and diagnostic sectors. Our semiconductor strategy will be significant in the context of the implications it will have in the future and our large-scale next generation sites. All that good work is under way. We need to keep a close eye on the indigenous economy. We know how much small family businesses generate around their kitchen table. They do not have a HR director or a finance director. A lot of the work is done at home under pressurised circumstances. Anything we can do to assist those and retain the employment in those communities is important.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Is Deputy Gogarty happy with two minutes? I am conscious of the clock.

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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I will go as quick as I can. I reiterate the support for the power-up scheme and the ICOB scheme or some incarnation continuing on. I have a question on indigenous innovation. We are way behind on wave energy. For example, we need to develop investment in deep water ports to meet our wind energy target. Is there anything planned for massive capital increases or borrowing for that?

On regional development, I mentioned at last week's meeting that we are getting many companies coming in that are getting software workers from elsewhere in the EU because they need them but they are all focusing on Dublin as much as possible. On one estate I gave as an example, 90% of the people buying the houses at cost of over €550,000 do not appear to have indigenous names. In that context, it is pricing public sectors workers in Dublin out of the market. We need a better regional strategy. That is happening, but the companies still want to go to Dublin.

I wish to ask the Minister two more questions. First, is there scope to give the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission a remit to be a "Pricewatch" for consumers? It is a regulator, but consumers do not have a one-stop shop to say where they are being ripped off on the price of different items in supermarkets. Second, has the Minister ever made submissions on the long-standing issue of multi-annual funding that would allow for better planning? What is his view on that?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy has raised a few points. On regional development, that is where we want to see things going under the national planning framework. I am constantly pushing IDA Ireland to increase FDI in the regions. We are at approximately 55% at the moment. Enterprise Ireland is doing better at north of 60%. We need to get more investment into the regions. This is going to be critical.

We had a response to our reports and our supply chains and innovation in our offshore and renewable sector through Powering Prosperity. We have 40 actions that we were working right across the sector with the Minister for climate to try to get additional investment in. Cork has a significant proposal in with the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, the investment bank. That will provide significant enhancement to the logistics that are required. Six applications are going through on the east coast.

We are planning reform of the CCPC. This is currently being examined by the Government and it is included in the programme for Government. We have significant powers at the moment to investigate practices that are anti-competitive in our grocery sector. The Minister of State, Deputy Alan Dillon, has reopened an investigation that concluded last year. He has asked the commission to update its study and that is under way. We will see what the result of it is.

I am all for multi-annual funding. The national development plan, which we are trying to negotiate now, is key for important projects of common European interest, IPCEI, and areas like that where there are analogue devices doing a massive regional project in the semiconductor sector, while supporting more than 600 jobs. There could be 50 patents out of it. Those are key areas that need to be invested in with European support and in common with other countries. In the context of multi-annual funds, it is going to be part our NDP ask to have a competitive fund. That is all for negotiation soon.

James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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On behalf of the committee, I thank the Minister and his officials for their attendance at this meeting. I also thank the members. I propose the committee adjourns until Thursday, 17 July 2025 at 9.30 a.m. when it will consider Committee Stage of the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2025. Is that agreed? Agreed.