Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The enterprise agencies are focused on the transition to a green economy. Future Jobs Ireland is one of the ways we can help businesses transition to a low-carbon economy. If we examine some of the supports that enterprise agencies are rolling out, whether it is IDA Ireland or Enterprise Ireland, we can see programmes and initiatives such as lean-green, which encourages businesses to implement lean business principles, paired with good environmental management practices. There is also Enterprise Ireland's GreenPlus scheme , as well as the GreenStart programme targeted at SMEs to aid them with regulatory compliance. There are opportunities in the low-carbon environment for companies to find work and there are some fantastic indigenous companies exploring many energy-saving mechanisms. There is much investment in that research through the disruptive technologies innovation fund and many projects we have supported include climate energy and sustainability aspects.

Ireland, however, has many small enterprises. I do not want to put further burdens on those companies. Instead, I want to reduce it and particularly in the area of administration. We can encourage and support such enterprises to transition to the low-carbon economy because it is most certainly in their interests to make that change and we will get good results by working with them.

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