I am not sure what the Deputy means by saying it is a sad day when the US is leading. The US leads in many areas. We try to lead in many areas too. Clearly, this is an area where we have made significant improvements but we are not where we need to be. That is why we need to encourage more young girls as well as women into tech and tech-based subjects through education. There are a number of programmes we support, from iWish to other innovation programmes that get young girls thinking at a much earlier stage, and i…

Ireland operates a managed employment permits system, maximising the benefits of economic migration and minimising the risk of disrupting Ireland’s labour market. The regime is designed to facilitate the entry of appropriately skilled non-EEA nationals to fill skills or labour shortages in the State in the short to medium term. In framing policy, consideration is given to other instruments that are also available in meeting skills shortages challenges, such as upskilling and activation of people who are unemployed.…

With respect, it is not the Deputy's office that will turn them around, it is the work permits system. Of course, any Deputy's office has the right to ask questions as to the status of the applications. Last year, this took months; it now takes a short number of weeks. There may be problems with individual applications. It may be the case that some work permits need extra consideration, they may be turned down or may not be on the critical skills list. If they are not on the critical skills list, there may be other…

I thank the Deputy for responding in a constructive way. It is not straightforward to streamline a work permits process and a visa process. What the Department of Justice has to do around visas in terms of security checks and so on can be quite complicated and time consuming. It relies on authorities in the countries people come from and, therefore, it does not always control the timelines in terms of responses. It is not straightforward but we have had initial discussions between the two Departments in terms of tr…

We are in the process of looking at that right now. The construction sector has been the subject of reviews in recent years. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is part of the discussions with my Department to try to get right the critical skills list, which is about to be updated. We have taken the view that many of the skills in construction, from engineering to architecture to quantity surveying, must be addressed, and highly skilled tradespeople have been facilitated in terms of work permit…

I will set out changes that we have made in response to some of the pressures the Deputy outlined. For example, the quota restriction on permits for bricklayers and plasterers, which was first introduced as part of a package in 2019, was eliminated in June 2022, giving those occupations unrestricted access to the general employment permit system. In October of the previous year, a package of occupations were made eligible, including tilers, painters and decorators. We respond each year. Each summer, we effectively …

I do not have a recommendation on my desk yet, but when I do, we will take decisions quickly because many businesses are waiting on them.

The Minister, Deputy Harris, is doing a great deal of work on apprenticeships and dramatically increasing numbers, but the Deputy is right in that there are certain trades where the numbers are not increasing to the extent required. We need to examine how to achieve that. We believe there will be an extra 9,000 apprentices this year. That was the target for the end of 2025 but will probably be met this year. As such, there is an appetite. We need to change the approach to apprenticeships generally in the Irish econ…

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is something that gets raised with me all of the time. The Government recognises that domestically traded sectors account for a significant number of firms in Ireland and, more importantly, for a high proportion of employment across the retail, construction, hospitality, leisure, and many other sectors. They contribute to the economies and social fabric of towns and villages across Ireland and help create jobs in every single region. Government policy has ensured a comp…

We hope we will be able to support many of those kinds of companies in moving to new digital platforms and new online sales processes. These are the kinds of things for which we can potentially give grant aid. In the latest round of the online retail scheme, 98 retailers received €2.3 million in funding, with 79% of successful applicant companies based outside of Dublin. There are schemes available but we have to be careful about looking for local enterprise offices to give grant aid to businesses that are competin…

First, Enterprise Ireland's remit has expanded from the end of last year. Until the end of last year, LEOs were only able to support and work with businesses that employed fewer than ten people. That figure has been increased to fewer than 50 people for companies that are manufacturing and exporting. If this is an exporting company, we can provide supports because it does not create potential displacement in local economies. There are companies that are not, for example, interested in moving to online trading platf…

I welcome to the Gallery the young person who is cheering us on up there. Their father is desperately walking around trying to keep them quiet. I thank the Deputy for the question. My Department regularly explores ways to assist businesses and create an environment that stimulates their growth. However, it is important that Government intervention be focused on those areas where there is genuinely a market failure. My Department, working with Enterprise Ireland offers a range of supports for exporting businesses, s…

The Deputy might remember, although it seems like a long time ago, that Ireland was in the space of export credit insurance in the past. Following the beef tribunal report, the then Government essentially decided to phase it out. Based on the findings of a review carried out later, the then Tánaiste, Mary Harney, concluded that the insurance exposure levels imposed on the State were disproportionate to the benefit they might give to exporters. As a result, the scheme was suspended after 1998. That said, we have to …

As I said, we have a policy on enterprise that sets an ambition of expanding Ireland's exporting base by an additional 2,000 companies before the end of this decade. We have, as I stated earlier, extended the mandate of the LEOs. We are trying to get more companies to scale up. Basically, we are trying to build multinationals out of Ireland, as well as to bring multinationals to Ireland from abroad. That relies on healthy trade growth, entering new markets and more diversification in a post-Brexit environment, for …

In the first instance, it was not previously committed to but let me explain why, please. As part of a review of the operation of the temporary business energy support scheme earlier this year, it was agreed that my Department would examine the possibility of developing an additional support scheme for businesses that use kerosene and LPG for the purposes of heating their business premises. This was in recognition of the fact that many businesses, particularly in rural areas, are not connected to the natural gas ne…

The Deputy is using one isolated case. My job was to look at the entirety of the market at the time and the price increase for LPG in the country. This is what I asked the Department to do and this is what it did do. It came back with the data which showed that there was an 88% increase in the cost of kerosene but only a 19% increase in the cost of LPG during the period. This was, incidentally, the period when there was the greatest increase in energy prices. I must rely on that data rather than on individual cases…

I appreciate the tenor of the Deputy's question but I just want to say that nobody on this side of the House misled anybody. The reason I insisted on moving ahead with the kerosene scheme was that I wanted to help businesses across rural Ireland in counties like that of the Deputy and others. There are many hotels, restaurants and so on which are not connected to the gas network and, therefore, were not able to get support for their increased heating bills which others who were connected to the gas network were abl…

I am heading to Mayo tonight and meeting with businesses tomorrow. I will be able to discuss that with the Deputy and others tomorrow. Additional information not given on the floor of the House IDA Ireland, through its regional property programme, aims to ensure a suitable supply of land, buildings and infrastructure in regional locations to meet the needs of current and prospective clients of the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices. In this regard, the IDA keeps its land-holdings under constan…

Some €700 million.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on the budget. I will share my time with the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond. We will take roughly ten minutes each.