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 caused for business owners over recent weeks. Since 24 January, I have been closely monitoring the situation with Storm Éowyn and its impacts on the business community through regular updates from the national emergency co-ordination group and updates from local enterprise offices in the counties with the most significant and prolonged impacts. Following the immediate damage caused by the storm, many businesses have been impacted by outages of power, water and communications networks. With regard the issue of potential schemes to support businesses with losses arising from Storm Éowyn, in the first instance I encourage businesses to seek recourse through their insurance providers to cover losses they have incurred. I have been engaging directly with the insurance federation and my clear understanding is most losses incurred by businesses, such as property damage, loss of earnings and spoilage of stock, fall within standard insurance cover and the damage caused by the storm is a standard insured peril for insurance policies. I welcome that Insurance Ireland has said that house insurance premiums, for example, are not generally impacted by one event such as this storm, but rather on a range of many different rating factors and insured perils. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has in the past operated targeted emergency humanitarian flood relief schemes in response to specific flooding incidents. These schemes are specifically targeted at providing a contribution to small businesses of up to 20 employees as well as community, voluntary and sporting bodies which have experienced damage as a result of flooding and to help them get back up and running. A condition of eligibility for these schemes is that the businesses must not have been able to secure flood insurance through no fault of their own. The programme for Government includes a commitment to an extreme weather event assistance scheme, which we are working on establishing.

Sentiment score: 0.06

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 regarding excess because they are very different, I can assure people that, in the general course of action and insurance peril, it is part standard insurance cover. Regarding communications, I have been on to the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan. We are very concerned about getting businesses and first responders which suffered outages at that time back up and running. We have a lot of work to do in that regard. This week Uisce Éireann will get 100 generators to future-proof for such events. The country needs to learn how we respond in future to a very significant event like this. We need to accept there were gaps in the response. Following the investment that went into rural areas through many schemes, there was an exceptional response and communities really rose to the challenge.

Sentiment score: 0.10

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 insurance. That is a very different scenario. We are establishing a scheme. I also point out that, regarding the statutory deadlines businesses face through the CRO and the Revenue Commissioners, we have worked to ensure there is significant leeway for businesses if they fail to meet their regulatory requirements at this time. For the key impacted areas, as I have said, the Department of agriculture has stepped up with a scheme for horticulture. We will be assisting on a lot of agricultural damage that happened. For businesses, we need to work to establish a statutory scheme in future, on which work is under way. At this time, the first recourse for businesses is through their insurance companies. If there are any specific cases, the local enterprise offices, LEOs, are very happy to work with businesses and support them in any way we can.

Sentiment score: -0.05

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 implemented in Ireland have been lower in percentage terms than the globally announced figure. Typically in an economy with such low levels of unemployment, employment opportunities will arise, especially for the talented people employed by the software sector. Nevertheless, where such job losses are announced for Ireland, our first and primary concern is for staff members and their families impacted by such decisions. The supports we can provide in conjunction with our enterprise development agencies and other Departments is at the forefront of our response. Moreover, the Protection of Employment Act makes it mandatory for employers proposing a collective redundancy to engage in an information and consultation process with employees' representatives for at least 30 days and to notify me, as Minister for enterprise, tourism and employment, of the proposed collective redundancy. Such an employer is prohibited from issuing any notice of redundancy during the information and consultation process with employees' representatives, and the employer cannot make employees redundant until at least 30 days after the Minister has been notified of the proposed collective redundancy. In any such redundancy scenario, the enterprise development agencies under my Department assist, where possible, those impacted to find alternative employment. This includes sharing the skills portfolios of impacted employees with companies that may be hiring, such as multinationals in IDA Ireland's client portfolio. Equally, working with IDA Ireland, our objective is to help to sustain and create further employment in the technology and software sector overall. In relation to the software sector it is important to note that the commitment of technology companies to Ireland remains exceptionally strong. Last year Ireland secured investments from leading companies in the sector including Microsoft, IBM and Intercom. On the Deputy's specific question, the Department was notified this week but I do not have the exact date in front of me.

Sentiment score: 0.22

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 rich vein. We have, as part of our digitalisation strategy, a very clear policy regarding the tech sector, which was established in February 2022. We have the White Paper on enterprise, which sets out our plans and goals to achieve 90% digital intensity in basic SMEs by 2030, which are a very important cog in the wheel as well. Obviously we have our AI strategy, which we have updated as recently as last November, working very closely with the AI advisory group, chaired by Dr. Patricia Scanlon. We are also working to implement the AI Act, designating our competent authorities and getting our regulatory sandbox up and running. There is a huge amount of opportunity in this space and Ireland has the foundation to grasp that opportunity and we will not be found wanting for the resources to do so.

Sentiment score: 0.41

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 jobs per annum, of which 54% will be in regional Ireland, aimed at getting 550 investments right into our regions. That is going to be critical to continuing the agility of our economy. There is huge demand. As can be seen from our critical skills permits, we are trying to bring in workers through legal pathways to feed a growing and strong industry. While there was recalibration in certain companies, the growth is very significant, as can be seen from the announcements in AI. Some incredible companies that are part of that landscape are setting up their headquarters in Ireland, which we welcome. We have the most prized resource of any country - our people and skills - and we are ready to absorb that opportunity.

Sentiment score: 0.37