I thank Deputy McAuliffe and I absolutely agree with him. We are doing that through our new semiconductor strategy, which clearly calls out the role Enterprise Ireland will have in advice and financing access to these projects. One thing I will say is one of the big projects we have had is from Analog Devices which has approximately a €630 million investment through the projects of common European interest. I was looking at one of these semiconductor companies quite recently, which had 814 SMEs on its books that it…

I thank the Deputy who is quite right; it is an area of huge opportunity. As a country, in the past we have not done enough in this area and having only one project speaks volumes. That is why we are reframing the narrative in connection with this and working with Enterprise Ireland and the IDA to try to ensure companies have the capacity to access these very significant projects. We know renewables and semiconductors are going to be important for the future of Ireland. As I said in my earlier contribution, when yo…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 14 and 25 together. I thank the Deputy for his questions. Companies can be struck off the companies register on either a voluntary or involuntary basis. Voluntary strike-off is proceeding as normal, with companies meeting the criteria being struck off on an ongoing basis by the Companies Registration Office. Involuntary strike-off by the CRO arises when companies are not meeting the requirements of the Companies Act 2014 with respect to registered directors and the annual filing of …

I wish to clarify that legal obligations still remain on the part of companies. We received approximately 560,000 submissions last year, so any company that is not complying with the Companies Act will be prosecuted. I want to be very clear on that; their obligations still remain. Regarding how it happened, as far as I understand, it was noted when the CRO was going through an involuntary strike-off methodology that two or three rounds of strike-offs did not appear in the CRO gazette, which they are obviously oblig…

As Minister for enterprise, tourism and employment, I am extremely proud to address Dáil Éireann today on International Workers’ Day to recognise the important role of workers to Ireland’s success and their value to the economy. This country, its workers and its businesses, have come through a series of deep crises over the past number of years - Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine and, currently, global tariff uncertainty. These crises have forced us to change and adapt how we work perhaps more rapidly and fundament…

I thank the Deputies for their engagement this afternoon. It is abundantly clear from today's debates that we are living through precarious times, with unprecedented threats to the international trading environment and resulting impacts on relations with trading partners, on the Irish economy and of course on Irish businesses. Deputies have raised a number of recurring themes throughout the interventions today and these are questions about the possibility of a global recession, concerns for the future of the multil…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I welcome the opportunity to discuss the Employment (Contractual Retirement Ages) Bill 2025. Before I go through the main provisions of the Bill, I will first give some background and context to the legislation. The Bill implements one of the commitments included in the Government’s response to the pensions commission recommendations and implementation plan. The majority of the Government’s commitments relate to significant reform of the State pension system and ar…

I rise to support the Government motion of confidence in the Ceann Comhairle and her right as a democratically elected constitutional officer to impartially adjudicate over the Thirty-fourth Dáil. In the context of a significant announcement due in hours from the Trump Administration that has the capacity to really impact so many livelihoods right across this country and pose a threat to so many jobs, we in this House are not debating a motion as regards the tariffs could be imposed in the coming hours. We are not …

We are not debating a motion on the capacity of our economy to respond to a significant shock that may be on the horizon.

Nor are we looking at the vulnerabilities our economy faces and how we may need to respond in the coming months.

We are debating a motion the Opposition has triggered-----

-----about eight minutes every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. That is what we are at here, while there are so many significant challenges to our economy. It is time we got back to a functioning Dáil and let Members in this House play their part on the various committees on which they need to represent our interests and the people's interests. We have seen unprecedented disorder in this House in recent months. We have seen video-recording, name-calling and chanting that one would expect to see at a far-right prot…

-----to really dig down into the various sectoral interests-----

It is absolutely your fault. It is the Opposition's fault that the committees are not sitting in this Dáil. There is no European affairs committee-----

-----to speak for colleagues right across the EU 27-----

-----as to how we are responding. There is no tourism, trade and enterprise committee to bring in sectoral interests, to advance the programme for Government-----

This is it - shout people down.

If anyone has an opposing view, shout them down.

You are well used to street protests.

We work in communities, we deliver, we do the work; you shout and roar and try to bring disorder here and have our Parliament suspended.