Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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159. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the degree to which IDA assistance remains available to the manufacturing sector throughout the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62303/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Manufacturing is the backbone of the Irish economy and is of strategic national importance to Ireland. It accounts for approximately 270,000 jobs (80% outside of Dublin), €100bn in exports, and contributes more than €30bn in local spend with a capital expenditure of €7bn. In the ICT, agri-food, engineering and life sciences sectors, Ireland is home to wealth of world leading manufacturing corporations as well as a thriving ecosystem of indigenous sub-suppliers and innovative specialist providers. Government remains steadfast in its support of this sector and has put in place appropriate resources to ensure its longevity.

Over the last decade Ireland’s manufacturing sector has witnessed an unprecedented surge in the uptake and deployment of digital technologies. To enable the digital transformation of the entire Irish manufacturing sector, the Government of Ireland published its National Strategy for Industry 4.0 in 2020. This strategy indicated a series of strategic actions to support the development and digital transformation of the sector. This commitment has again been underscored in the White Paper on Enterprise recently published by my Department.

In recognition of the importance of the sector for Ireland, IDA Ireland works to support the manufacturing sector by way of a series of interventions. In 2022, IDA launched the Advanced Manufacturing Centre (AMC) in Co. Limerick.

The AMC is an independent industry-led centre that will enable Irish based discrete manufacturers to access, adopt and accelerate digital technologies at scale. Supported by DETE and Exchequer funding of €10.6m to date (across 2021 and 2022), the AMC will support the Irish manufacturing base to accelerate the adoption of digital technologies across their value chains, positioning them to drive digitally enabled business process transformation across their workforces, technology assets and manufacturing operations in a sustainable manner.

By enabling the digital transformation of Ireland’s manufacturing sector, Ireland will sustain and enable the future resilience of this economically critical sector.