IDA Ireland’s strategy of diversifying its market reach involves broadening the geographic profile of investors. This is supported by the agency’s pathfinder model, which it has used across several territories over the past number of years and involves engaging in market business development consultants on a part-time basis in markets with business potential and in which IDA Ireland does not have a presence. IDA Ireland successfully tendered for a part-time Israel-based business development consultant during 2021, …

I was a foreign Minister once but I am not one at the moment. I am an enterprise Minister now. Many of the issues the Deputy has raised are foreign policy issues on which I have very strong views. However, we are dealing with questions on enterprise. The Deputy’s comments are very one-sided in many ways. As he knows, I have been a very strong voice at a European level in relation to the rights of the Palestinian people to have a state of their own and on a two-state solution, a peace process and holding Israel to a…

As the Deputy will know, I have discussed many of these options many times. We have taken advice from the Attorney General about what we can and cannot do. We have received very clear answers from three Attorneys General in a row in relation to the occupied territories Bill. I repeat that Ireland could decide to do things that will gain the support of this House but the question we need to ask is whether it would make a difference on the ground to Palestinians. Would it protect children, women and innocent civilian…

It is 37 GW-----

-----by 2050 and it will be well over €100 billion of capital investment. The Deputy is correct that if it were 30 GW it would be about €80 billion. It costs about €3 billion per gigawatt to develop offshore. It depends on whether it is fixed or floating but that is the rough guidance figure. It is enormous expenditure and it has the potential to employ tens of thousands of people around the Irish coastline, in parts of the country that perhaps do not have this kind of industry and employment opportunity at the mom…

There are a lot of questions there. Enterprise Ireland has a stable of about 4,500 companies. The Deputy is right that most of them are focused on export markets and global growth, and that is Enterprise Ireland's remit. We have seen and are seeing Enterprise Ireland develop capacity to support and service this sector. We have a unit within Enterprise Ireland that is focused on this group of about 90 companies that are developing new technologies in supply chain considerations for the scale of investment we referre…

I would say officially that everything is hunky-dory between the different Departments. In this case the relationships are good. There are a number of different Departments, including the Department of housing and planning, which has effectively designed and produced the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, and An Bord Pleanála, which will soon be a planning commission, has played a role in making decisions offshore. There is a role for the Department of Transport, which needs to get port infrastructure in pla…

I can confirm that officials from my Department are still investigating the recovery of a number of items, ostensibly of Irish origin, from Ukraine. The investigations are still ongoing and are complex in nature. The components in question are in circulation in many jurisdictions and may have been resold a number of times before being acquired by bad actors. This has required multiple strands to be assessed, both from a technical and an international perspective, and we have worked with our EU and international par…

I cannot give an exact end date on this. I will, of course, inform the House as soon as I can. All I can say is that we are taking it really seriously but that if one follows the supply chain network in terms of how a component part gets into a missile in a part of the world and then gets subsequently exported to another part of the world where there may have been multiple different actors involved, it is quite difficult to follow that chain. That is what we are obviously attempting to do to understand and satisfy …

She is pretty tough when she is in the Chair.

On 24 October, the Government activated the emergency business flooding humanitarian schemes that provide enhanced support of up to €100,000 to business, community, voluntary and sporting bodies that have been impacted by severe flooding events caused by recent storms. The current schemes now cover counties Galway, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Louth, Wexford and Kilkenny. We want to ensure no one is excluded. To date, the Irish Red Cross has received 11 applications from businesses in Louth. The applications have onl…

The insurance industry does have a responsibility to work with businesses post flooding and not to simply write off parts of the country because we have a flooding event. The Government will play its part in humanitarian support, which is effectively what this is. The Red Cross is a humanitarian organisation implementing humanitarian supports for businesses. It is not the alternative to insurance provision although, in the short term, in many parts of Ireland where it is not possible to attain flood cover, we must …

My Department is looking at ways in which we can respond to the court judgment from a legal perspective. It certainly is the intention of the Government to ratify CETA but we have to do it in a way that is consistent with the court judgment that has been made. We are considering that and taking advice on it as we speak.

I assure the Deputy that I hear what he is saying. I spend a lot of time speaking to small businesses. That is my job. Even this morning, we were at a hub summit, which was about supporting, both financially and from a policy point of view, enterprise hubs around the country and helping small businesses to get on their feet and grow. We have never had more small businesses in the country. We have never had more people employed by small businesses than we have today but there are pressures that many small businesses…

This is a Government that is pro-enterprise, pro-business, pro-start-ups, pro-enterpreneurship-----

-----and very conscious of the pressures that businesses face.

There is an ongoing dialogue between my Department and management and unions at Tara Mines. Our objective is to get the mine open again and get people back working. A number of things need to be put in place before that can happen. The union leadership knows that and has been very responsible in how it has responded to the process so far. The situation is very difficult for the families that are impacted. I assure the Deputy we are working at all levels, with management, with the owners of the parent company, with …

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time". I welcome the opportunity to introduce the Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Bill 2023. Essentially, the Bill will further enhance the protections of employees in a collective redundancy in a way that does not unduly impede enterprises in the conduct of their businesses. Before I go through the specific provisions, I wish to give some background and context to the legislation. This Bill is being introduced i…

I thank Deputy O’Reilly for raising this issue. Increased female participation in our workforce is vital for our economy and, in the interests of our society, we need to ensure women can realise their full entrepreneurial potential. This is an issue on which the Government is focused. In fact, the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, as late as last week, met an organisation called TechFoundHer. I have also met a number of organisations on this issue to discuss how to address some of the barriers that women technolo…

I have no problem trying to collate more data and publishing it. The motivation here is probably the same on this side of the House as on the Deputy's. I have met a number of groups that are specifically focused on providing more angel funding, for example, through female angel funders, and more venture capital, VC, for women founders. I have met a number of women in business groups to discuss how we might do that. Clearly, although we have made significant improvements over the past decade or so, there is still a …