Results 1-20 of 8,324 for speaker:Peter Burke

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Enterprise Policy (16 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: I am aware that the Restaurants Association of Ireland have recently published their Pre-Budget Submission for Budget 2026. Among the proposals raised by the Association include: a reduction in the Hospitality VAT rate to 9%; linking National Minimum Wage (NMW) to inflation for 2026; and a reduction in the employer PRSI rate of 8.9 per cent to 4.45 per cent for a one-year period. The...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Tourism Policy (16 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: Enhancing cross-border cooperation and connections is a key ambition of this Government and tourism is an important asset towards achieving this goal. By continuing to support the tourism agencies, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland, the Government seeks to strengthen Ireland’s reputation as a high-quality, accessible destination for both domestic and international visitors...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Weather Events (16 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: The Programme for Government contains a commitment to develop an Extreme Weather Event Assistance Scheme for community organisations and businesses. This initiative is a strategic policy action for delivery within the timeframe of the current Government. My Department operates an Emergency Humanitarian Flooding Scheme in response to specific flooding incidents. These schemes are...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Departmental Expenditure (10 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: The information requested by the Deputy in relation to the funding of legal studies is outlined in the attached table. The courses listed are all the legal studies and EU law courses that were commenced by staff in my Department within the last 3 years, their duration varies based on the course type and qualification received.

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: State Bodies (10 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: As the Deputy may be aware, the recruitment campaign to fill the position of Chief Executive Officer of Fáilte Ireland is currently underway.  I understand that it is anticipated that an appointment will be made in the Autumn.

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Artificial Intelligence (10 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: My Department recently reviewed its Generative AI Policy and an updated version has been issued to all staff.  The policy highlights some of the potential areas where Generative AI can deliver efficiencies but also sets out the risks of using such technologies and the mitigations that staff in the Department must adopt to avoid those risks.  This was based on guidance received from...

Seanad: Pregnancy Loss (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025: Second Stage (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: I welcome the opportunity to discuss this Private Members' Bill that addresses the extremely important and sensitive subject of pregnancy loss. Miscarriage can be a deeply personal loss and is something that is often dealt with privately by mothers and fathers who grieve the loss of joy, excitement and a precious future imagined. I know one in five women or couples can experience...

Seanad: Pregnancy Loss (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025: Second Stage (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: Yes. I will engage with it. I did not say I have engaged with it.

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: I can go through the detailed statement or members could ask questions to put into the record, whatever they wish.

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: I can give a few highlights. We have a significant Vote in the Department this year. We have taken in responsibility for tourism, which is a significant change. It is important to have the Department of tourism at the heart of the Department of enterprise because it gives huge opportunities to our SME sector to absorb the huge capacity and challenge we have in upskilling many businesses. ...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: I thank Deputy Clendennen for his kind comments. Absolutely it is important that we support the enterprise sector. I was very much aware when I came into the job that two thirds of all employment in our communities are in our SME sector. Small family businesses drive much of our economic activity. It is critical that we ensure we reduce the regulatory burden placed on them over a number...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: The summit is where the challenge report from the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council is presented to Government. Our action plan on competitiveness will be the response to the NCPC's report. Essentially, Dr. Frances Ruane has the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, which is supported by a lot of Government Departments and has independent members. They provide...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: We had a consultation period on the action plan for competitiveness. We had a lot of submissions from different sectors including people from various political backgrounds. We have responded to them in the plan. The committee will have its role in holding our feet to the fire in relation to the ambition that is set out across the 80 recommendations, with clear timelines, and the...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: It is not that they were left unclaimed. Everything that went forward that was correctly processed was paid. These are cohorts that did not indicate which sector they were from during the application process. That is one of the key areas the appeal mechanism will respond to. We had to set up a separate process for the 31 local authorities to administer the appeal, which is very...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: The local authorities are aware of the individuals who are going through the appeal process. To be very clear, this is not for new entrants. These are people who already were in the system. I would genuinely say the mechanism was designed to make it easy for businesses to draw down. Over the calendar year 2024, we got close to €0.5 billion out to businesses up and down the country,...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: There should be no reduction in expenditure for them. Critically, we are very much focused on making things simpler for all our local enterprise offices across the country. We have 31 of them. We started a simplification process and looked at the service level agreement between Enterprise Ireland and our LEO sector for the many schemes they administer. In my view, in some of them there...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: Unfortunately not. I would point out that we opened the scheme a number of times. We embarked upon a significant media campaign on local radio and there was a national campaign as well. It is always going to be the case that people get left behind. I do not want to see anyone being left behind but unfortunately it does happen. The critical thing is that sometimes when we have expenditure...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: There is an increase. As an economy, we have increased research and development spend by more than 400% in the last decade. This shows where we are going at the moment. If you look at the IDA last year, it spent €1.8 billion on research and development. It is looking for €7 billion over the next five years. All those figures are up. There are record levels of research and...

Select Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 32 - Enterprise, Tourism and Employment (Revised) (9 Jul 2025)

Peter Burke: Absolutely. That is why we have the Grow Digital portal, which we are trying to encourage people to use to access the sustainability portal and the digitalisation one which will essentially carry out an audit of their whole businesses. It will then come forward with the supports that are required. We specifically set up the national enterprise hub, which has 250 supports across 29...