Peter Burke

I am happy to work with Deputy Aird in Laois to ensure that Laois continues to grow. We have our advanced planning permit, which we are now working with IDA Ireland and Laois County Council on for our advanced building solution. It is important that we can reduce lead times and give certainty in that regard. We had a great day at Midland Steel, where we have 70 jobs. It is a good example of where …

I thank Deputy Aird for raising Leprino Foods and the 132 jobs there, which are valued. I know it is working under a timeline at the moment. We are working so hard with Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, looking at a prospectus for a site, because it is a highly valued building. It is highly regulated and utility-rich. It provides a significant offering for a company. We are working really hard to ge…

I offer my sympathies to Gillian and Stephen, parents of the late Harvey, for their inconsolable loss. This debate is brought to us by Aontú, by a party that is absolutely bankrupt of ideas. We heard its leader, Deputy Peadar Tóibín, on "Morning Ireland" this morning bemoaning the fact that he has had only two or three opportunities to table Private Members' business in this House. Yet, at the ver…

-----bring forward a new vision? Absolutely not.

The first thing Aontú has done is brought the nuclear option and tried to pull down the Government, with parties that are providing solutions together for these families. When I was appointed Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, the then Taoiseach, Deputy Simon Harris, immediately said we need to reset and focus on family businesses. Since then, in the first eight weeks we delivered an…

This is a strongly pro-jobs and pro-enterprise budget. The signal has gone out that Ireland is a fantastic place to do business, to scale up and to invest in. Our economy and workforce must continue to reap the benefits. The budget demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensure that our economy delivers for our citizens and supports our people and businesses through investment and sensible man…

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for this very important question. I firmly commit to ensuring that small- and medium-sized businesses have access to affordable credit. My Department has developed several loan guarantee schemes, the first in 2012, that have enabled participating lenders to offer loans at interest rates below their standard commercial terms. The scheme currently open to SMEs is the gro…

To go back to the evidence, if we look at the first scheme I referenced, which was the growth and stability loan scheme, we have at this point in time almost used up the €500 million allocation. This demonstrates that SMEs are using it and drawing it down. We also increased the Microfinance Ireland loan scheme for our smaller SMEs, up to €50,000 from €25,000, and it is supporting approximately 12,…

I am very happy to work in this regard. The critical thing I am trying to do is make these supports available to our SMEs and family businesses, which employ two thirds of the people throughout our economy. I am very aware that the average SME does not have a finance director or a HR director. A lot of the great work is done around the kitchen table. This is why we are working with the centre of e…

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for her question. I am happy to inform the Deputy that my Department is making significant progress in simplifying the application process for enterprise grants, particularly those administered through the local enterprise offices and Enterprise Ireland. Following instruction from my Department through the recently established small business unit, the Enterprise Irelan…

We are not really talking about regulation here but about the administrative procedures for small businesses to get the funding they need to develop online platforms, to become more sustainable and to meet their objectives. What we want to do is to make that process easier. This is not a significant risk to the taxpayer. Many of these grants are particularly small and many genuine enterprises just…

I appreciate the feedback and ideas because we all need ideas to come forward. Along with Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs, I am particularly focused on making things more accessible and trying to reduce the administrative burden. I am trying to establish a new accelerator programme for our country. The Deputy will be aware of PorterShed in Galway, Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, the NDRC and issues aroun…

I am not aware of making any such promise. I want to be very clear on that. The National Minimum Wage Acts allow for lower or subminimum rates of the minimum wage for employees aged 20 years and younger. Those aged less than 18 years can be paid 70% of the full minimum wage rate, while those aged 18 and 19 years can be paid 80% and 90%, respectively, of the full rate. As the Deputy is aware, the L…

This is not an over and back exchange. The Deputy can make his contribution.

The Government's commitment is to defer the decision to 2029. We will publish the data behind that shortly. It should be noted what the commission actually said on subminimum rates. It is not exactly what the Deputy quoted. It stated: The Low Pay Commission recommends that sub-minimum wage rates for employees who are 18 and 19 years of age should be abolished no sooner than 1 January 2025. Contr…

I am proud of the role the Government has played in improving the rights of employees. The Deputy spoke about rhetoric. Every decision he puts across to us is binary. He does not consider the potential impact such decisions would have on education pathways for young people and the unintended consequences. He does not consider training. He referred to 19-year-olds and 18-year-olds. I can tell him r…

That is what the Deputy's proposal will do. Let us be clear about it. He would close down every small business in the country if he had his way and he was running the country.

The Deputy does not have any balance. He does not know what it means to keep good high-value jobs in our economy.

I thank the Deputy for the question, which I appreciate. It concerns a very important area for us as a Government and one that under the programme for Government we have committed to finalising the action plan on the promotion of collective bargaining by the end of 2025, in line with the EU directive on adequate minimum wages. Work on developing the action plan in conjunction with our social partn…

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh again for her comments on the matter. As I said, it is one area that through the programme for Government we are very much committed to. The Deputy quite rightly spoke about participation in the various forums. Deliberations will be ongoing on that and how we can address it in our action plan. We will be doing that. We have got a lot out of the LEEF structure in terms o…

I absolutely agree that quality jobs are so important in our economy. I think this will be one of the areas we will focus on during our Presidency of the EU in the second half of next year. That will give us a key opportunity. We must remember that in the action plan and under the adequate minimum wage directive, MEPs from my party, including Regina Doherty and others, played a huge role in really…

First, I should say that we will have a new tourism plan, hopefully in the next month, following consultation right across Government. That should be a good response to where we need to be for future-proofing the sector. I should clarify that the promotion and operation of regional tourism is a matter for the local authorities, Fáilte Ireland and other tourism stakeholders. Cork is represented by…

I thank Deputy Moynihan for his question. Absolutely, I am open to working with the Deputy on that. Maybe we could set up a meeting with Fáilte Ireland to see what is specifically being done for the Gearagh to ensure that the message about its natural beauty is being advertised. Údarás na Gaeltachta and Fáilte Ireland met recently to form a strategic partnership. They have signed a memorandum of u…

I am happy to bring in the stakeholders to see how we can improve the offering. I have no objection to that, especially when, as the Deputy has well described, the asset could have great potential. That is what we need to do. We need to get back to the authentic beauty that Ireland has to offer and the authentic céad míle fáilte that we are so renowned for worldwide. We can do a huge amount of wor…

IDA Ireland’s regional strategy has a proven track record of success, and the agency has reaffirmed its strong commitment to regional development as a core pillar of its strategy for the period 2025 to 2029, which I launched some months ago. The strategy aims to secure 550 regional investments over its lifetime. That is 55% of all investments, including 100 in the west, reflecting IDA Ireland's on…