Peter Burke

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-…

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, g…

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 interv…

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 implemen…

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 j…

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…

-----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.

Well, let us resolve one thing today: that this House will not be suspended again. Let us ensure we get on with our work and are delivering for the Irish people what we were sent here to do by our communities.

I welcome the opportunity to brief the House on international security and international trade - two issues at the core of Ireland’s foreign relations at a time of great turbulence and change in the world. The Tánaiste has clearly set out the challenging international security situation and international trade context, highlighting the complex global environment in which our economy is working fo…

I wish Deputy Conway-Walsh the very best of luck in her role as spokesperson. I look forward to working with her. I had a very good relationship with her predecessor, Deputy O'Reilly. The Ministers of State, Deputies Smyth and Dillon, and I look forward to delivering the programme for Government in the years ahead. I am acutely aware of the significant challenges the impacts of Storm Éowyn have c…

I thank the Deputy for her response. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine has announced a scheme for investment in the horticulture sector, which has been very significantly impacted. I was very quick to contact the insurance federation to get assurances that businesses affected would be covered regarding their standard practice. While I cannot go into the detail of individual policies r…

In line with the commitment in the programme for Government, we are establishing a scheme. Specifically for this event, we need to be clear that the first recourse for businesses is through their insurance to cover them for damage, loss of earnings and spoilage of stock. That is the critical way in which they seek recourse. It is very different from flood damage where businesses could not get insu…

While the technology sector, which includes software, has undergone a period of sustained growth for the past 20 years, recently it has seen some significant contraction. Where IDA Ireland's multinational clients in this sector have announced global job reductions, the reductions have typically been less than 10% of their total global workforce. Furthermore, in most cases, the job reductions imple…

While we have seen a recalibration in the tech sector post Covid, it is still very strong. We have a very rich vein of talent. We have and are host to eight of the ten global leading tech companies in this State at this time. We provide so much talent and skills, with 8% ICT graduates in our economy. That is double the EU average. We are double per capita in STEM graduates, which provides a huge …

We have a huge demand for workers in those categories. That can be seen from how much the landscape has changed across our capital city and other regions throughout the country. That is why the IDA has specifically called out digitalisation and AI as one of the key growth drivers for its new five-year strategy, hoping to bring in €7 billion of research and development investment, growth of 15,000 …