Dáil debates

Thursday, 27 October 2022

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

White Papers

10:20 am

Photo of Catherine ConnollyCatherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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20. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the status of the development of the White Paper on enterprise; his plans to prioritise sustainable indigenous industry in the forthcoming White Paper; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53787/22]

Photo of Catherine ConnollyCatherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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My question is on the status of the White Paper on enterprise, which is fundamental to the new transformation we must make in Ireland.

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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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.

Photo of Catherine ConnollyCatherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Minister. The White Paper will be crucial to set out the policy for Ireland. I had hoped to make a submission. I read all the documentation and I got as far as writing a draft submission. I took the trouble to read it and what troubles me is that in theory we will make a change but the documentation I read suggests that we are continuing in the same direction.

The Minister for Rural and Community Development will also deal with my next point in the next business. We do not yet have a policy for sustainable living on the islands and for supporting what is being done there with indigenous industries. I will take as examples areas in which I have taken a particular interest. One of these is seaweed - the Minister is nodding his head. We have got nowhere with this as an indigenous industry. Another is wool, which I discussed yesterday. We have spent €100,000 on being told the possibilities for wool. In the scheme of the big accountancy firms this is not much but it is still a lot. The possibilities for wool include everything from insulation to fertilisers but we have done nothing. These are the examples that come to mind very quickly.

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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With regard to making a submission it is not too late. It is a non-statutory process and if the Deputy or any other Oireachtas Member wants to make a submission even at this late stage they are very welcome to do so. Our industrial policy down the years has served us very well. We have done well in our economic success, full employment, high levels of prosperity and high living standards in a ranking of 200 countries. It is largely based on trade and exports. It is not just about foreign direct investment. People often do not know this but there are as many people working now in Enterprise Ireland companies and Irish-owned exporting companies as there are in IDA Ireland companies. The objective of the White Paper is to give us a high-level roadmap on where we go from here to consolidate the gains we have made and to consider what the next wave of industries we need to invest in will be.

Many of them will be in the digital space as well as the green space, such as in renewables, circular economy and new products, some of which the Deputy mentioned.

10:30 am

Photo of Catherine ConnollyCatherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I thank the Minister for clarifying that submissions are still being accepted. I thank the Minister who will be dealing with the next questions on the progress that has been made. However, we have been waiting on the policy for the islands for so long and on interdepartmental reports.

Going back to the topic of seaweed, these are good news stories we are ignoring. I am only picking two or three, the latest of which was the story on wool. You read a report that tells you about the potential of wool, only for the Government to do a Pontius Pilate and says it is up to the industry. The industry has not done it. The farmers who depend on sheep and say they are not getting any price for their wool, are begging for help and leadership on this. Of course they will work with the Government, but it has not happened. Therefore, the new policy must look at indigenous industries in a real way and look at regional imbalance. The Minister of State seated beside the Minister knows very well that the north west has been downgraded by Europe for the second time. There is something seriously wrong here in that we are not taking charge with a different vision of the possibilities that exist, with the people on the ground, and having co-ops as a serious part of that vision.