Results 21,401-21,420 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: The Youth Guarantee is mainly the remit of the Minister for Social Protection. The only part I deal with is youth entrepreneurship. Action Plan for Jobs reads:Communication must become a central part of our suite of actions. In communicating our work, as part of the Year for Jobs, we will aim to deliver information that is easy to find and easy to digest, through channels that the target...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: The Department of the Taoiseach will develop that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: At the last Action Plan for Jobs meeting I attended in Portlaoise, the Department of Social Protection was represented with a stall from which it advertised its wares. All the local businesses were invited to that meeting.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: A new initiative is being rolled out in Dublin, Cork and Galway whereby 40 agencies will come together in a single location.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: The LEO website will deliver that information.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: A communications strategy will be rolled out in 2014. It will be driven by the Department of the Taoiseach so that it applies across all Departments. I will supply the committee with further information on the strategy. In regard to land hoarding, the Department of the Taoiseach is co-ordinating a construction strategy which it intends to publish by early April. I do not know whether tax...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: I dispute that. For example, in the west, NUI Galway has been given research money for a cluster of marine and offshore projects. We are identifying future clusters and investing in research centres where expertise is gathered. We have made decisions to provide facilities in Letterkenny, Athlone and Waterford. Waterford is a pharmaceutical and life science area and we can strengthen the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: I do not accept that there are no instruments to try to promote a greater regional spread in the IDA. This year we have committed to build in Letterkenny, Athlone and Waterford. We have Connect Ireland, an innovative scheme that is delivering a more regional spread. There was an improvement. IDA investments outside Dublin went from 23% up to 30% and jobs went from 19% to 35%, so there was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: The Department of Social Protection produced figures and for 85% of the live register there is an incentive to take up work. The change being made is the move from rent supplement to the housing assistance payment. It will be like a city council differential rent. The rent would be related to one's income, for example 15% of one's income after a certain figure as opposed to losing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: That is a target at national level outside Dublin and Cork. My challenge is how to get the midlands or whichever region to perform better and examine what enterprise strategy can be implemented, what the region's competitive strengths are, the IDA, EI and LEO strategies and how we can get the stakeholders in the regions to back credible programmes of action to drive a successful regional...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: It will be about real enterprise. People will compete for a bursary to get their business off the ground.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: It will be run through the LEOs but a standard will be set. We had a competitive start-up fund aimed at women last year and it was massively over subscribed. We trebled the provision and it was still fully subscribed. In the areas where entrepreneurship is under represented, there is an untapped pool and if one can design a scheme aimed at a group of people, that is the best way. One goes...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: To start with big data, I suspect we could probably aim for something like 5,000 jobs over a certain period of time. However, one cannot set an annual target in this area. What one can say for definite - I can get the data for the Deputy - is that we have had several wins in the IDA area in big data. In order to create the ecosystem, or whatever one likes to call it, in which big data will...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: They have been only pilots so far. We would like to have got this going further but we have gone through a number of pilots to try to get it working right. I think we have a model that we will roll out.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: I think it will be 1,000 this year and 1,000 next year but, to be honest, this is trying to prime the pump and encourage people to think in those terms. In regard to retail, I was in a provincial town recently where a number of people are interested on a commercial basis. Someone is looking at having a collective for the town. That is being done by way of a private initiative and we are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: There are no targets. The old target of bank approvals did not work, because even though the banks were perceived to have been meeting growing targets in approving facilities, the actual amount of new lending was declining. We are now going to be more granular on what exactly is happening. My ambition is to set targets in regard to things that matter to business. It had a certain merit...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: Please group them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Forthcoming Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: The policies advocated and proposed for countries are essentially structural reforms, and no one would deny structural problems which needed to be addressed were part of Europe's problem. The focus on making markets work, taking down barriers to entry and allowing networks throughout the EU to achieve advantages due to the scale of the market have been sensible strategies. People can...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Action Plan for Jobs: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: I will go through all of the items. Most members are familiar with the Action Plan for Jobs process. Each year we consult business, enterprise, those on both sides of industry and entrepreneurs to try to identify pressure points. We then seek to address them throughout Government. This year is no different. I will not go through all of the areas; I will just highlight some where we have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Forthcoming Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council: Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (4 Mar 2014)

Richard Bruton: The recommendations will undoubtedly focus on what countries are doing about their NEETs and youth unemployment rates. These will be the drivers of the country-specific recommendations. That is the reason it is so important to get a score card that has broader social rather than solely fiscal elements. We would expect in Ireland's case, as has happened in the past, that they will look at...