As my colleague stated, we support anything that improves the lot of business from the point of view of streamlining systems, services and grant application schemes. There are concerns about this legislation that I will deal with. The intent can be fine but unless we have the resourcing and capacity, we will have particular issues. At a meeting of the Good Friday Agreement committee recently, representatives from various chambers of commerce, including those in Dundalk and Newry, contributed. They were almost singing from the same hymn sheet about the work that needs to be done regarding cross-Border co-operation. I have raised this issue many times with Ministers and taoisigh in the context of the necessity of dealing with the taxation issues that exist across the Border. A particular issue exists whereby those who live near the Border cannot work remotely in the other jurisdiction. This creates a difficulty for them and, in particular, for the companies that employ them. I put on the record once again the necessity for this to happen. Their big issue is industrial development and enterprise in the area, and they spoke about the M1 Border corridor and the real benefits we have in the area, including the new relationship between Queen's University Belfast and Dundalk Institute of Technology to develop what will hopefully become Dundalk university college in the very near future. What we really need is infrastructure. The first issue the representatives to whom I refer spoke about was wastewater infrastructure. We know about the need for this in the context of both future industrial development in the Dundalk area and housing. Decisions were made regarding a new development of 502 houses. The latter could not proceed because of insufficient infrastructure. This is an issue that cannot be dropped. In my area, there is a local enterprise office which is linked with Enterprise Ireland. There is also InterTradeIreland, and IDA Ireland has a huge footprint in the area. We need to see new industrial sites to allow for the possibility of having a new WuXi, medtech, pharma or tech of any sort. When the development of housing is refused, industrial development will also be refused. I thought it was utterly shocking that, whatever about me, other elected representatives are bringing up the issue of Uisce Éireann and the need to upgrade the infrastructure. Everyone in Dundalk heard 2027 being give as one date for the upgrading of the pumping station on Coes Road in Dundalk, but now we hear it could be in 2029. The date for the completion of the treatment plant on Point Road in Dundalk has been put back from 2030 to 2033. None of that is good enough. Not only do we need to make sure we have serviced sites available for industrial development, we also need to make sure that we have the basic infrastructure required. We can have all the legislation the Minister brings forward, but it will not make any difference if we cannot get rid of wastewater. The latter is causing particular issues with regard to housing and flooding, particularly in the part of Dundalk where I live. Sinn Féin has always had a great interest in supporting indigenous enterprise. When we see the measures in the Bill to strengthen this and help businesses transition successfully to a low-carbon economy, we all accept that it is the only way to go. Therefore, anything that facilitates it is to be welcomed. When we speak about local economies, we sometimes become fixated on the large operators and foreign direct investment. This is not to take away from their importance but we know that an awful lot of Irish-owned SMEs provide the backbone of local economies. We have all seen the issues with the economy being overly exposed and overly reliant on some of these big operators. We need to make sure we have State supports and investment opportunities and that we see facilitation in relation to this. I do not think anyone would complain about any of this. We need to see an expansion of enterprise grants. This means having clear pathways for SMEs to access funding. When we talk about funding schemes or grant schemes, the biggest issue we generally have is the difficulty in accessing them and a complexity that does not necessarily help. We are generally talking about people who run very successful businesses and have capacity. We need to look at this from the point of view of not only having the schemes available but ensuring they are streamlined as much as they can be. This is accepting that due diligence needs to be carried out. What are we speaking about when we refer to SMEs? The latter are 99% of the businesses in the country, and they employ the majority of workers at in or around 68%. As much as I speak about the M1 Dublin to Belfast corridor and its importance for the economy in that part of the world, it is a part of the world where we need to see more seamless interoperability, which I spoke about earlier. We need to see a greater level of balance. We know that this has impacted not only on industrialisation in particular parts of the country, but also on employment and other matters, for example, how we have not facilitated infrastructure like roads, wastewater, clean water, etc. We cannot have a conversation with somebody who runs a small business without talking about the issues that exist for them. Some of those relate to the complexity of filling out grant applications and so on and navigating that system. We have an inability to accept that we are dealing with the most expensive electrical costs in Europe. It is all well and good having task forces and talking about taking action. I was disappointed when Deputy Pa Daly brought forward Sinn Féin legislation to give further powers to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to tackle this, as we had an element of Government support but not a sufficient amount to support the legislation. The Government said it was too early to deal with this and that it was looking at it. We were a long way into high energy costs long before the madness in the Middle East. We need to make sure that we look after people as best we can. We cannot mitigate all the pain, but this Government could have gone further. I reiterate the need for a cost-of-living mini-budget. It is a necessity. While I welcome that there was a cost-of-disability forum and consultation and that they will affect next year, we are failing those with disabilities at this moment in time. We all know the benefits we could be seeing with artificial intelligence. However, we have already seen issues. We can talk about Meta. While I was told that the recent job losses at PayPal were different, there has been huge displacement, particularly in the tech sector, as regards artificial intelligence. We need to have a considerable interest in job retention and getting the benefits of artificial intelligence. We also have to look at delivering further jobs even if they are different from the ones being displaced. The Government has to keep an eye on this. It does not make sense that we are not reducing the administrative burden. The Minister of State, like many here, has spoken to businesses about the complexity and burden placed on those businesses by some of these schemes. We have to look at that. I spoke about energy. We want to see that transition to sustainability, so we will need to see grant schemes that can deliver on same and reduce the long-term costs for businesses. I turn to the amendment of the Science and Technology Act 1987 to remove the requirement of formal Government approval before enterprise agencies engage in activities of primarily military relevance. There is nobody who will not be worried about that, given the interoperability and close relationships of many companies, particularly with those engaged in illegal war. We can talk about the US regime but there is also what we have seen over many years from the genocidal Israeli regime. I am incredibly worried by these moves, which fit into the move away from our independent foreign policy of non-alignment and neutrality. I do not think anyone has an issue with making sure that we are sufficiently resilient as regards protections in terms of cyber and subsea cables, but I do not think that can be correlated. We know that there are companies we should not be dealing with, namely, ones dealing with those engaged in killing civilians by the thousands. That is in no way good enough. When we talk about businesses, we also need to make sure that our services run well. I commend Debbie McCole, my colleague from the ambulance service, who is a Sinn Féin councillor in Drogheda. We should have seen the Government act quicker. We are glad that things are in the Labour Court. We need to see movement on that. I will have a particular issue to take up with the Minister of State later.

Sentiment score: 0.15