Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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83. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 74 of 23 February 2023, the status of the first implementation plan for the White Paper on Enterprise; when the plan will be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22147/23]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department is responsible for the development of consecutive two-year Implementation Plans of cross-government activity to implement the policy direction set out in the White Paper. The Implementation Plans will focus on delivery of key initiatives or projects under each of the seven priority objectives identified in the White Paper. These priorities are:

-Integrating decarbonisation and net zero commitments;

-Placing Digital transformation at the heart of enterprise policy;

-Advancing Ireland’s FDI and trade value proposition;

-Strengthening the Irish-owned exporting sector;

-Enabling locally trading sectors to thrive;

-Stepping up enterprise innovation; and

-Building on strengths and opportunities.

I will bring the First Implementation Plan, covering the period to the end of 2024, to Cabinet later this month and it will be published shortly after it has been approved.

A key aim of the first plan is to ensure a clear pathway to achieving the White Paper vision is agreed by all relevant stakeholders and that considerable progress towards this vision is achieved by Q4 2024.

Officials in my Department have been working closely with the enterprise agencies and other Government Departments to finalise the first Implementation Plan. The portfolio of initiatives and projects to be included in the Plan will be reflective of the efforts underway to align enterprise policy interventions with the vision and ambition set out in the White Paper.

The programme of work called out in the Implementation Plan will be driven by my Department and the enterprise agencies, with other relevant Government Departments and public bodies responsible for a number of key deliverables.

Progress is already being made on many of the elements that will be included in the Implementation Plan. For example, work is underway to integrate the cost of carbon into enterprise agency evaluation models, to drive the take-up of artificial intelligence tools by business and to develop a National Clustering Programme.

Progress on the Implementation Plan will be reported on every six months to the Cabinet Committee on Economy and Investment with the first update report scheduled for Q3 of this year.

In addition to updates on the initiatives included in the Plan, the biannual reports will track progress towards the 15 targets set out in the White Paper, with new data under each of the measures included as it becomes available from the relevant sources.