Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being here to hear his debate. Some of his colleagues do not always stay to listen to debates, so it is refreshing he is here. When I was appointed Minister for enterprise in 2011, a total of 1.8 million people were at work. Today, the figure stands at 2.7 million. We have a 50% larger economy in terms of the number of people in employment. That is an extraordinary change in our economy and society, and we are planning now for a much larger economy with much greater infrastructural needs. I was taken by the comment made by Deputy Varadkar yesterday when he was stepping down as Taoiseach yesterday. He stated that if he had any regret, it was that he had not been bolder in making some decisions or acting when more cautious advice was being tendered to him. The penny has not fully dropped with all of us that our economy is now so dramatically bigger. We are catering to a much larger population with a much larger set of economic and social demands than we have been planning for. I recall the Minister's Department predicting in 2011 that 50,000 was the level of jobs growth we would experience over a five-year period. We now have nearly 1 million additional people at work after a 12-year period. That conceptual change is something we need to get to grips with.

Equally, while I very much welcome this future fund, the backdrop to ageing that we increasingly hear debated does not recognise that the fact we are living 20 years longer is a fantastic achievement and a fantastic opportunity. It is bringing unheard-of potential benefits that we can exploit, not just for people of a certain age who are experiencing that today but for society as a whole.

We should not be talking about this as a burden and a time bomb. This is an opportunity, and we can build social capital from a growing population that is living longer, living healthily and able to do remarkable things. However, we have not adequately structured our thinking or the institutional framework such that we think of it in those terms and set about delivering the potential that exists.

I cited a few examples to the Minister on Question Time, including the fact that we do not have suitable accommodation for people who are older. Most of us are living in accommodation far beyond our needs, but we do not have the chance or the incentives to right size. Some 50% of us would like to work beyond retirement age, but we do not get the option to do it. Worrying about the dependency ratio when we trap many people who want to work longer in options that close that off to them is counterproductive. I am sorry that the name of the commission coming up is not a commission on positive ageing but, rather, a commission on care for older people. That is a part of the reality, but only a small part. We need to think differently. We are working in an economy that is at full capacity, and that is a real constraint. Our constraints at the moment are not primarily financial; they are real constraints in the context of the capacity to build this infrastructure. We do not have the staff.

The Minister needs to turn his attention to how we are going to build that capacity to build critical infrastructure. We need to think outside the box. How are we going to get those building lots of offices to switch to building other things we need, such as housing and so on. Are we going to take a different view to FDI? We have a good base with IDA Ireland for getting foreign direct investment, but we need FDI to create capacity to build critical infrastructures. We need to upskill those in the construction sector, which is predominantly too small in scale and not building to the standards required. We need to streamline planning, and we are doing that. We need the State to be willing to de-risk some of the investments that need to be made. What would be wrong with the State saying it will underwrite by buying 50% of the homes in a particular development. It can provide certainty. There are 70,000 applications in respect of which planning permission has been given, but work on the relevant projects has not commenced. We need to think about how we shift that.

We are also planning against a dangerous time in geopolitics and at a time of transformative change, as Deputy Whitmore stated. We need to accelerate climate action and climate adaptation. This is a really welcome journey. The State is adopting a plan-led approach and investing in the infrastructure for the fantastic offshore energy resource we have. We will need those resources the Minister is setting aside, and we need an effective plan to bring what is being planned to fruition.

I appeal to the Minister to think about carbon farming. It is good to see the Minister for agriculture seated beside him. Without leadership in the design and funding of carbon farming we will find it difficult for farmers to successfully undertake the transformation they need to take. They do not have the confidence at the moment, and you hear that on a daily basis. We need to invest in design, in potential funding and in leadership.

We need sectoral, circular economies. In the context of the Minster's planning, green procurement is not delivering the level of shift needed in the context of the way we do things. We do not, for example, have timber being used more in public projects. I recently had the good fortune to be in Paris to hear how they are planning for the Olympic Games. The French authorities are taking a radical approach. There will be no plastic inside the Olympic stadium. People will bring their own containers and there will be fountains at which they can refill them. Every element of that construction will be moved on, and they already have the plan for where the different elements of construction will be redeployed after the Olympic Games. That is real green procurement. We do not see a shadow of it here as yet.

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