Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and I appreciate his answer. IDA Ireland is very important, as is Enterprise Ireland. The Minister of State referred to bottom-up plans. These do not seem to be happening. I welcome that the plan will be published very soon and that it will be published before Christmas. I am thinking, for example, of wool. It has taken donkey's years to get a feasibility study for wool, which has huge possibilities.

I am looking at seaweed, on which we still do not have a national policy. It is one of the fantastic possibility areas for the west of Ireland. I am also looking at the islands, on which we have no policy. How does this fit in? This is the first plan since a pandemic was declared and it is certainly the first plan and opportunity since both a climate and a biodiversity emergency were declared. The only thing I see when I look through the various pieces of literature is that it talks about eco-gaps, which I would welcome if it was talking about the gaps in the ecosystem, but it is actually talking about business in a strange way because we have to do things differently. Is that not the case? We have all agreed on this. Will this plan be different and has it taken cognisance of the two emergencies I have mentioned, plus the pandemic?

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