Results 39,461-39,480 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Social Media (8 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: My department and its offices subtitled 93 percent of its social media video content during 2022. There were no videos posted during 2022 that included Irish Sign Language. Separately, I have requested that the state agencies under the remit of my department provide the information requested and I will forward this to the Deputy once received.

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Energy Policy (8 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy will understand that the allocation of grid costs to energy customers is a matter for the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU); I do not as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment have a statutory role in that regard. The CRU is the appropriate regulator, and it is empowered and required to ensure that grid tariffs appropriately reflect the cost of providing grid...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: On the WRC, as of 31 January it had 63 inspectors working in the field. It is actively recruiting to fill seven inspector vacancies. That will get us up to 70.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: Regional recruitment campaigns for inspectors have concluded. Three more inspectors are due to be assigned to the WRC in the near future. A further recruitment campaign is intended for the third quarter. We will have an ongoing rolling recruitment campaign. If a commitment was made to get to 90 inspectors that should continue to be the target but it will happen incrementally. We will...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: As far as I am aware, the target of 90 inspectors is still where we want to get to. We will get to 70 very shortly and we will have another recruitment campaign that will increase the figure further. We can follow it out through the year. We are pretty transparent on this.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: Absolutely. We need net increases and not just more people coming in.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: With regard to the Health and Safety Authority the current headcount is 232 full-time equivalent staff. I will see if I can get a figure on it.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: We have had noticeable increases in the HSA and the Workplace Relations Commission in order to have more staff in both and more inspections so they can perform their remit. I will give the Deputy all of the data we have on them.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: It is helpful to put on the record the extent of the work of the HSA. Last year it carried out more than 11,000 workplace inspections in all sectors of the economy. More than 8,800 proactive inspections were completed under general occupational safety and health legislation. There were well over 1,100 proactive inspections under the Chemicals Act and the transport of dangerous goods by...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: The big outlier is the TBESS scheme. I would be interested to hear what other members of the committee have to say on this. There was an announcement in the budget last year that up to €1.3 billion could be assigned to the scheme. More than €650 million of this was assigned for last year and €650 million for this year. The scheme was only launched in late November....

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: Exactly. For some companies, this seems to have been a problem. The first Revenue deadline was the end of January for September 2022 claims. Some businesses may have waited until the new year and closer to the deadline to register. In other words, people were waiting until the last minute and they were focusing on other things.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: There was a big increase in the last week of January in the number of applications. We have extended the deadline to allow other submissions to come in. The guidelines on Revenue's website for see TBESS were 121 pages long. This seems to have been a bit intimidating for some small businesses that would potentially have had to pay an accountant to come in and put the applications together...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: -----before applying. As a result, we are going through all these issues systematically. We have a team working on this issue. I suspect the same is happening in the Department of Finance and other Departments.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: We do have time. We have extended the deadline. It should also not be forgotten that people can apply right up into June and July for the month of February.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: Having said that, there is a huge gap between €31 million and €650 million.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: This is something we need to address proactively, but a great deal of work is going on to do that. The first decision that needs to be made is whether we extend this scheme beyond February. The second concerns what flexibilities can be introduced to make it easier to apply without having to change primary legislation. Third, is the question of whether we have to change primary legislation...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: To say one more thing on TBESS, concerning people outside Dublin, especially, there would have been a lot of feedback from hotels and restaurants relying on oil for heating systems or on liquefied natural gas, LNG, that is not on the grid. In other words, these premises do not receive a bill like they would from an electricity provider-----

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: Yes. This is a much more difficult for Revenue to administer. It is a gap in the scheme and this is something we are looking at. I do not want to overpromise that we can deliver this, but we are talking to the Revenue to see whether this is possible because it is a major part of the energy costs, particularly for many hotels around the country that are not on the gas grid but that have a...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: We already have something very close to this, in that we have a retail forum-----

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Revised) (9 Feb 2023)

Simon Coveney: -----working group. Under its auspices, three working groups were convened last year to drive actions in the retail forum work programme, the Future of Retail, which is effectively what the Deputy is talking about. These include one examining the town centre first policy and the night-time economy. The focus is on considering whether the supports are relevant, the policy implementation of...