James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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15. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will provide an update on the new national clustering policy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33182/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Programme for Government 2025 “Securing Ireland’s Future” includes a commitment to establish five new national cluster organisations. Importantly, the Programme for Government is underpinned by an emphasis on a Shared island approach. This commitment echoes the commitment in respect of clustering in the White Paper on Enterprise, which recognised clustering as an enterprise policy tool to improve national competitiveness by building clusters of national scale with international visibility.

In the Revised Estimates 2025 a dedicated funding stream of €384, 000 was secured for the National Clustering Programme. The focus now is on funding a number of organisations with a triple helix model - representing collaboration between Industry, Academia and Government - that have a track record of delivering international impacts and thus proof of concept to support submissions to secure further funding for future years. It is proposed to pilot up to three mature clusters in the Irish clustering ecosystem, all of which support national strategic national priorities. The selection of existing, high performing, organisations will assist in the development of a robust evidence base for further National Clustering Programme funding in the Estimates 2026 process. This approach is in line with the findings of the The Competitiveness Institute (TCI) international experts who my Department engaged to undertake a draft review of the proposed National Clustering Programme.

As regards next steps, my officials will publish, in the coming weeks, the TCI Peer Review Report, the criteria for selection of national clustering organisations and the Key Performance Indicators which must be delivered at the end of year 3 before the full 6 year funding for clusters of national scale can be released by the programme. The 6 year period for funding of national level clusters is in line with international best practice.