Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department continues to progress its work on the White Paper on enterprise, which is scheduled for publication in December this year. We undertook an extensive consultation with the public, stakeholders, academia and other interested parties over the summer. We also held a symposium on the project earlier this month.

The White Paper will seek to articulate what needs to be done differently to realise our aspirations for our economy in 2030 and beyond. It will set out the risks we face, the policy choices and, importantly, the trade-offs we will need to consider. It will also seek to confirm what elements of the ecosystem are working well and what should be continued or adapted in the context that Ireland's enterprise and industrial policy which has, to date, served us well.

Prioritising sustainable indigenous industry, as Deputy Connolly has identified, will be an important theme of the White Paper. It will also cover entrepreneurship, innovation, scaling companies, the twin transitions of digital and green, investment in skills and education and competitiveness among other issues. The outcome will likely be one of evolution and adaptation rather than revolution. My ambition for the White Paper is that it will contribute to a more prosperous, equitable and sustainable Ireland.

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