Dee Ryan (Fianna Fail)

The Minister is very welcome to the Chamber. I am delighted to be speaking to him today because I know he gets it. I know from industry and enterprise perspectives that he is well informed. I wish him success in his role and thank him for his opening remarks. I was really pleased to hear about the action plan for competitiveness and productivity and that the Minister is not only considering the vital area of the SME sector, which is indeed our largest employment sector, but also recognising the crucial role multinationals and large-scale indigenous businesses play in driving our economy. Without these large businesses driving our economy, there would not be a trickle-down effect, work to be done in the SME sector, and money to be spent in the retail and hospitality sector. While each area is precious in terms of employment, vibrancy and animation, we must recognise the crucial importance of the larger companies as the drivers and engine of our national economy.

I was really pleased to see the emerging themes the Minister is addressing in the action plan. I want to raise with him today the importance of energy and having a sustainable supply of it. With regard to our national competitiveness and ongoing enterprise, I also want to raise the need for Ireland to attract foreign direct investment and the issue of our own companies scaling up and selling. There is a need to supply green energy to companies in the future. The Minister is interested in the offshore renewable energy sector as a sector in its own right that will provide employment and stimulate investment in our ports and coastal towns and villages but also as a sector that will attract big, high-energy-use companies in the manufacturing and industrial sector to Ireland owing to the endless supply of green energy we have off our west coast.

As the Minister will know, I was a member of the Shannon Estuary Economic Taskforce. I am very familiar with our potential to have floating offshore wind energy infrastructure off our west coast, but I really fear that this message, delivered very clearly by the task force in 2023 and reiterated by organisations such as Wind Energy Ireland, is not reaching those it should. As recently as today, I met a Valentia development group seeking to develop floating offshore wind infrastructure in their area. My fear is that the message stressing the importance of zoning the deep waters off our west coast for the DMAP is not reaching the Department or getting through to its officials. The Minister might liken the approach being proposed right now – which is to zone the rest of the Irish waters all together and include in these what should be the priority area, the area off our west coast, where the winds are strongest – to peeling your potatoes and putting on your peas at the same time as warming up your oven to put in the chicken.We are not going to be ready - dinner is not going to be ready on time - if we leave the most important component and area for zoning for floating offshore wind until the very end. I am therefore delighted to see the Minister's interest in this because it is an enterprise issue, not just an energy or environment issue. It is critically important to us and our national economy and I am delighted the Minister is factoring this into his work.