I am pleased to bring the Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026 to the Seanad. The Bill has completed its passage through the Dáil. This is a short but important Bill which further empowers the enterprise agencies, namely, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to accelerate investment, employment and regional development. My Department keeps the statutory framework of the enterprise agencies under review, as the Government's enterprise policy objectives evolve.

The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that the enterprise agencies have the legislative tools they need to incentivise investments that underpin Ireland's strategic goals. The Bill strongly supports objectives in the programme for Government and in the action plan for competitiveness and productivity, namely, job creation, regional development and the reduction of carbon emissions.

The Government continues to support Irish-owned companies to grow and scale, together with providing direct investment towards each of their decarbonisation journeys.

At the same time, as global competition for foreign direct investment intensifies, Ireland needs to stay agile and ambitious to win investment. This Bill introduces a dedicated environmental aid grant, thereby allowing the agencies for the first time to assess projects solely on carbon emissions criteria under the granted powers of the Industrial Development Act 1986, streamlining the approval process and cutting red tape. The Bill also provides for agencies to support their clients in assessing external consultancy services, enabling them to obtain professional advice and guidance on the green and digital transitions. This support will help businesses grow to a sustainable and competitive footing over the long term and will be particularly valuable for SMEs, which often do not have in-house expertise in areas such as digitalisation and decarbonisation.

It also amends the Industrial Development Act 1995 to allow the IDA to enhance its property offering by co-investing in projects with third parties. This amendment will allow the IDA to leverage its property budget, thereby expanding its ability to provide property solutions in regional locations. Currently, the IDA can only invest by itself although it collaborates with others, including local authorities. Once the new legislation is enacted, the IDA can partner with other organisations to deliver enterprise property solutions once the terms have been approved by the Ministers for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation.

This Bill will also allow enterprise agencies to better support enterprises that can play a role in strengthening our defence capability and more broadly in the field of defence security and resilience, which is of critical strategic importance to Ireland in a rapidly changing global context. As the Department of Defence noted to me, the field of defensive technologies has developed to include areas such as cyberdefence, space domain awareness and maritime surveillance, as well as hybrid threat monitoring. In order to support this sector of the enterprise base more dramatically, the Bill deletes section 8(5) of the Science and Technology Act 1987, which requires enterprise development agencies to secure formal Government approval before they engage in or promote any activity of primarily military relevance. The European Competitiveness Fund, expected to begin operation in 2028, will consolidate and build on existing EU-level investment instruments designed to strengthen European industrial capability, including in relation to defensive technologies and space. A key enabler to maximise our engagement with EU funding initiatives is the capacity to utilise the competence and capability of both Enterprise Ireland and the IDA.

Furthermore, this Bill provides a vehicle for other unrelated legislation from my Department. The miscellaneous provisions included in the Bill will enhance the safety regime around the storage of flammable liquids, will clarify Enterprise Ireland’s freedom of information, FOI, obligations, will amend the Chemicals Act 2008 to give full effect to EU detergents regulations and increase the period members can serve on the board of the Health and Safety Authority from three to five years.

I will briefly outline the main visions of the Bill, which is comprised of 11 sections in three parts.

Part 1 is technical in nature and includes three sections. Section 1 contains standard provisions relating to the Short Title, construction and commencement of the Bill, while section 2 is a definition of the Dangerous Substances Act 1972 and section 3 is a repeal and saver related to that Act.

Part 2 of the Bill amends the Industrial Development Acts 1986, 1995 and 1998 beginning with section 4. Section 4 provides for the addition of a section 21A to the Act of 1986, which provides for the enterprise agencies, that is, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, to make grants for environmental protection initiatives on terms and conditions at their discretion, including solely environmental conditions, such as carbon abatement, once initial approval criteria have been met. In addition, this section provides for a new section 21B of the 1986 Act allowing the agencies to support their clients in assessing external consultancy services for advice or studies in respect of technological innovation, environmental protection or business development.

Section 4 of the Bill also updates the technology acquisition grant thresholds to align with the individual and aggregate grant thresholds of other grant categories in the legislation. These are the thresholds that apply before specific Government approval must be secured. The threshold for individual grants will be amended to €7.5 million and the aggregate threshold will be amended to €15 million.

Section 5 amends the Industrial Development Act 1995 by the addition of a section 6A, which allows the IDA, or the IDA jointly with Enterprise Ireland, to co-invest with third parties, such as State agencies that make strategic investments, to develop property solutions for industrial or commercial activities through the creation of jointly owned designated activity companies.

Section 6 amends the wording of section 7C of the Industrial Development (Enterprise Ireland) Act 1998 to clarify that grants given by the IDA under sections 21A and 21B of the 1986 Act are not to be counted towards Enterprise Ireland's aggregate threshold in section 7C. This is a threshold that applies before specific Government approval must be sought.

Part 3 of the Bill, its final Part, includes a number of miscellaneous amendments. Section 7 removes the definition of petroleum-spirit and consequential references to petroleum-spirit from the Dangerous Substances Act 1972 and replaces this definition and references to petroleum-spirit with a definition of fuel, including flammable liquid, as outlined in the EU classification, labelling and packaging regulation. The purpose of this amendment is to extend the scope of the requirements under this Act for anyone storing certain quantities of petroleum or other flammable liquids to hold a licence issued by the Minister or an appropriate local or harbour authority. This amendment also enables the summary prosecution by local or harbour authorities of a person who, in contravention of the provisions of section 21 of the Act, has in their possession or control fuel within the meaning of the Act without having a licence to do so issued by the appropriate local or harbour authority.

Section 8 provides for the deletion of section 8(5) of the Science and Technology Act 1987, which requires the enterprise development agencies to secure formal Government approval before they engage in or promote any activity of primary military relevance. The proposed amendment will allow the agencies to engage with and support enterprises in the defence, security and resilience sphere in the same way as enterprises in other sectors, subject to compliance with all existing controls and legal obligations governing the sector.

Section 9 provides for bringing the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 up to date with the code of practice for the governance of State bodies, published in 2016, which recommends that board appointments be for a period of three to five years. Currently, appointments to the board of the Health and Safety Authority are for a period of three years, in line with the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.

Section 10 provides for the transposition of EU legislation on detergents and that the Minister is not considered to be in default of obligations under EU law due to penalties being insufficient. Section 5 of the Chemicals Act 2008 is amended to facilitate the making of regulations for the purpose of giving effect to obligations arising under the treaties governing the European Communities or under Acts adopted by institutions of the European Communities. In addition, section 29 of the Act is amended in relation to offences.

Section 11 amends Part 1 of Schedule 3 to the Freedom of Information Act 2014 to ensure that Enterprise Ireland's disclosure obligations under the Freedom of Information Act are not overridden by statutory confidentiality obligations contained in the Industrial Development (Enterprise Ireland) Act 1998.

I commend the Bill to the Seanad and look forward to engaging with Senators on the matter today, as well as on Committee and Report Stages.

The Minister, Deputy James Browne, and his four guests have just left us. I am sure they enjoyed the debate.

The Industrial Development (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2026, as the Minister has outlined, seeks to amend the Industrial Development Act 1986 to effect the permitted purposes and amounts of state aid in the form of grants that can be awarded to private companies by the Irish enterprise agencies, namely, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.

It proposes to amend the parent Industrial Development Acts of 1986 and 1995 and the Industrial Development (Enterprise Ireland) Act 1998. The Bill also seeks to provide for minor amendments to offences regarding the handling of chemicals, amendments regarding the Health and Safety Authority, the Freedom of Information Act 2014 and the Science and Technology Act 1987, as well as technical enabling amendments for offences under the Dangerous Substances Act 1972 and the Chemicals Act 2008.

There is a lot in that, and it is a bit of a mouthful, but I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill, especially in respect of small businesses, which is what I will focus on. Maybe this is because I am spokesperson for enterprise for Fine Gael in this House, or maybe it is because, day to day, my husband and I are involved in our small business, or maybe it is because it has been bred into me all my life by my parents that small businesses are an essential component of every town and village across Ireland.

It is important that when we discuss enterprise development and industrial policy, we remember the thousands of small business owners across this country who are working incredibly hard every day to keep their businesses going. They are working so hard. They include independent retailers, family-run businesses, businesses in the hospitality sector, service providers, furniture manufacturers and self-employed people who are employing people locally, supporting their communities and making a significant contribution to our economy.

Do Senators know that in my family's small business I get about two to three requests for sponsorship a week? We are asked whether we can sponsor quiz games, a local table quiz or a school raffle, or whether we can buy a set of jerseys for a football team. We love doing these things, and it shows how small businesses really are the backbone of the economy the length and breadth of the country, but what if small businesses were not there to do these things?

We cannot ignore the reality of what small businesses are facing. The cost of doing business has increased considerably. Energy bills, insurance, wages, employer PRSI, rent, rates, supplies and compliance costs are all putting pressure on businesses. Many small business owners would love to be thinking about scaling and growing, but I am afraid many of them are thinking about viability and keeping their doors open. That is why I believe the supports available to businesses are so important and why this legislation is relevant.

One of the key aspects of this Bill is the strengthening of the ability of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland to support businesses through environmental protection grants and consultancy assistance. We often talk about sustainability, energy efficiency and digital transformation, all of which are important. However, we must recognise that these changes come at a cost. A large company may have an entire team dedicated to digitalisation or sustainability. A small business owner may be doing their accounts at night, managing staff during the day and trying to keep up with every other responsibility that comes with running a business.

Family time or switch-off time is very hard to get when you are working for yourself in a small business. You could be on the couch watching a film when an issue arises. I can vouch for this because it happened in my house last week. An email came in and I saw my husband's face and knew that the email was not good. That was in our downtime. An alarm could go off, a worker could call in sick for the next day or a problem could arise that you need to work out. When we are thinking of applications, forms and compliance, small business owners are the people we need to be thinking of. We need to make sure that small businesses are not left behind.

The provision for consultancy aid is particularly important. Sometimes a business does not need a huge grant but access to the right advice and expertise to identify where it can save money, improve efficiency or maybe make better use of technology. We should be helping businesses to identify those opportunities and giving them the practical support to act on them.

I also welcome the changes to the technology grant thresholds, which are intended to make the approval process more streamlined. Businesses need supports that are responsive and accessible, not processes that create unnecessary delays. I realise the Minister understands that.

The provisions allowing IDA Ireland to work with third parties to develop industrial and commercial property and infrastructure are also important. I always remember my dad telling me about building his factory and the support he got from the Industrial Development Authority in the 1960s, how important that support was and how he ended up employing so many people in Navan. If we want businesses to expand, create employment and invest in regional Ireland, we need to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is available.

The Minister just told us that amending the Industrial Development Act 1995 allows IDA Ireland to enhance its property and infrastructure offering by co-investing in projects with third parties. This amendment will allow IDA Ireland to leverage its property budget, thereby expanding its ability to provide property solutions in regional locations, which is very welcome.

When a small business succeeds, it supports other local businesses, provides employment and keeps money circulating in the local economy. I love the following quote, which we always see outside coffee shops and other businesses: "When you buy from a small business, an actual person does a little happy dance." There are plenty of times we have done dances in our house.

While I welcome the measures of this Bill, we must continue to examine the wider cost-of-doing-business challenge. We cannot expect businesses to invest, innovate, employ more people and become more sustainable if the cumulative costs of operating are becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Small businesses need a voice in policy decisions. The experience of a small independent business is very different from that of a multinational, and it is very different even from that of a medium-sized business. We need to recognise that when designing enterprise supports.

We need to keep listening to business owners, and I am glad that the Minister is going to be coming to my constituency next week to listen to business owners, particularly those at the smaller end of the scale, and to ensure that Government supports are reaching the businesses that need them. A grant is only useful if a business knows it exists, can understand the application process and can realistically access it. Ultimately, we want Irish businesses to grow, employ people, invest and compete. However, first and foremost, we need to ensure they can survive the very real pressures they are facing today. Access matters as much as funding. A small business owner cannot spend days completing complicated grant applications. Supports need to be straightforward, properly advertised and accessible. Supporting small businesses is not just about supporting individual business owners. It is about supporting jobs, families, communities and the future of our local economies. We should remember what I said in this regard: it is about sponsoring the football team, the quid games and the table quizzes.

I welcome the Bill and the additional flexibility it provides to our enterprise agencies and I look forward to seeing these measures translate into practical opportunities for businesses across the country. This Bill is a step towards supporting business development, but it must sit alongside further action on insurance, energy, rates, wage increases, pension enrolments and the other everyday costs putting pressure on small businesses.

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Burke, and his officials to the Chamber this afternoon. I welcome the Bill. As the Minister has outlined, it provides for the delivery of Government policy in the areas of green and digital transitions. This Bill will assist in ensuring our economy remains resilient and competitive. It will further enhance the ability of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to support enterprise development by strengthening their capacity to support the green and digital transitions. The Bill's amendments will also future-proof the legislation in this area, ensuring IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland have the flexibility and agility needed to swiftly capitalise on future EU state aid rule adjustments as they arise.

The Bill will allow IDA Ireland to enhance its property and infrastructure offering by co-investing in such projects with third parties, including the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, a State fund that specialises in strategic investments aimed at supporting economic activity and employment in Ireland. This is a particularly welcome and needed change. We all recognise the challenges that exist in terms of infrastructure, and this has been spoken about often in this House. The ability of IDA Ireland and ISIF to partner in order to deliver much-needed infrastructure in regions across the country is very welcome and has the potential to make a significant impact. The Government has highlighted the importance of ensuring our regions continue to strengthen economically, and this will assist in that goal.

The Bill also modernises and streamlines the process around engaging with and supporting projects in the defence, security and resilience sphere. The defence, security and resilience-related provisions remove the requirement for prior Government approval before the enterprise agencies engage in or promote any activity of primarily military relevance. While enterprise agencies already engage without prior approval in supporting clients who produce dual-use products and technologies, in practice the line between civilian and military activity has become increasingly complex. The statutory requirement for Government approval where an activity is assessed as being of primarily military relevance can therefore act as a constraint on agencies' ability to engage efficiently, particularly where timely participation in EU defence, security and innovation initiatives is required. This change is needed and welcome as the current requirement for Government approval hinders agency support in the defence, security and resilience spheres and has a chilling effect on their work by creating uncertainty about what engagement requires prior Government approval and what does not. By removing that uncertainty, we are ensuring that agencies can act with the necessary flexibility to fulfil their roles.

As the Minister, Deputy Burke, noted earlier, the Bill will help Ireland to attract investment and support innovation in areas that matter for our long-term economic strength and national security. For enterprise agencies, the focus is on defence, security and resilience, not on military activity.

The Bill also proposes to allow the enterprise agencies to provide an environmental protection aid grant, assessed on the environmental criteria such as carbon abatement actions, rather than the traditional employment and economic growth metrics. The Bill provides for the creation of a new category of grant which will allow agencies to assess applications on environmental criteria alone, rather than relying on the categories currently provided for which have different aims than sustainability.

At the moment, it can be very challenging for agencies to approve grants when the economic criteria defined, such as jobs or output, are not directly related to the action taken, such as in the case of carbon abatement projects, for example. This makes the current application process for environmental-related projects cumbersome and time-consuming and IDA Ireland has confirmed that at an operational level this is a significant issue, describing this extra conditionality as an onerous constraint. The new environment grant in the Bill provides for additional items and conditions on a case-by-case basis. Along with the environmental criteria set out, it will enable IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to award environmental protection aid grants. This provides that such grants can be made for such projects on terms and conditions deemed appropriate and in the form deemed suitable based on respective agencies' analysis. It is a significant and welcome change which was clearly needed based on the feedback from IDA.

One other positive change I should be highlighting is the provision to allow IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to give grants to enable their client companies to engage external consultants for professional advice and guidance on the green and digital transitions and environmental protection. This amendment supports objectives under the climate action plan and the action plan on competitiveness and productivity. These transitions require expertise and the capacity to engage that expertise as needed is a welcome modernisation.

The Bill is needed and welcome. It is an appropriate modernisation of the law in this area. As members are aware, Ireland has gained a strong global reputation as an excellent place to do business, but we can never rest on our laurels. We must always ensure we are adapting as required and that we keep sustainability and digitalisation at the forefront of our industrial policy. This Bill is part of that effort and should be welcomed as such.

Sinn Féin will oppose the Bill today. I have followed the progress of the Bill through the Dáil. The failure of the Government to accept any of the amendments tabled by the Opposition parties raises serious questions about the intent of the legislation. Numerous TDs raised the fact this Bill removes section 8(5) of the Science and Technology Act 1987, which requires Government approval before Enterprise Ireland or IDA engage in projects involving military or defence activity. The Government voted down the amendments which would have had this addressed and for this reason we cannot support the Bill. The Government says this is a short Bill which will enable the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to accelerate investment, grow employment and enhance regional development, and this might well be true. However, it also deletes section 8(5) of the Science and Technology Act 1987 which, as I have said, previously required IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to secure formal Government approval before engaging or promoting activities of primarily military relevance.

I have heard no satisfactory explanation for the removal of this safeguard. Earlier this year it was reported that the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment sanctioned the export of €20 million worth of dual-use technology with civilian and military capabilities to the Israel Defense Forces, IDF, and the country's Ministry of Defense. This occurred at the height of Israel's military assaults and genocide on Gaza and it was in total contradiction to claims by the Government representatives that they supported sanctions against genocidal Israel. Therefore, there is good reason for Senators to be circumspect regarding the legislation before us today.

I would also like the Minister to provide some clarity on figures contained in the Bill. There was a lot of confusion during the Dáil debate around section 21B(3) which states:

Without the prior permission of the Government, the total amount of money granted to a particular undertaking under this section shall not exceed in the aggregate the higher of—

(a) €7,500,000, or

(b) €7,500,000 in excess of the aggregate amount of grants provided to the undertaking ...

Yet, the Minister stated there was an upper limit of €300,000. He said the €7.5 million figure was the State figure but €300,000 was the European figure for state aid rules. What if the European figure changes? Will we be in a scenario where, rather than a limit of €300,000 it could suddenly be at €7.5 million without any notification to the Government? This is extremely worrying and requires an adequate response and reassurance.

Unfortunately, there are too many unanswered questions. This could be a case of a very benign Bill which improves how the IDA and Enterprise Ireland do their work in the case where we might be able to resource our own Defence Forces and provide the technology to do that, but there are also potential Trojan horses in what we do and how we support activities going on in other countries which are completely unethical and against the express wishes of the Irish people. There are more questions that need to be answered about the passage of this Bill. I have no doubt there will be amendments put on the next Stage, but as it stands today, Sinn Féin will be voting against the Bill.

This is a wide-ranging Bill that contains a lot of elements that are welcome. However, we have significant concerns about measures which are contradictory to Ireland's stated position on neutrality in general and, more particularly, to our position on Israeli actions in Palestine. Deleting the following wording, "The Agency shall not engage in or promote any activity of a primarily military relevance without the prior approval of the Government", in section 8 is a step towards removing democratic oversight and public accountability of where our money is spent and risks compromising our neutrality. Why is the Government seeking to introduce legislation which actually removes its ability to provide oversight? The removal of this vital sentence effectively gives companies supported by the IDA and Enterprise Ireland the opportunity to pursue profit, even at the expense of our international reputation and of innocent lives elsewhere in the world. The Government should retain general oversight and control over any activity which has a military relevance and which is taking place within an IDA or Enterprise Ireland company. Very little in the way of military hardware or software is required for our own security and Defence Forces, so the likelihood is that what is envisaged for future production is likely to be destined for export. This means the laissez-faire attitude towards our neutrality displayed by the current Government, as evident in other discussions about the triple lock, is evident again in this legislation. It is a case of showing a deliberate lack of curiosity, I would even call it, rather than oversight, in what corporations based here are engaged in.

A lack of curiosity or interest by governments in what corporations are involved in globally has led to a situation where private enterprise is now directing the course and conduct of conflict throughout the world. Corporations and arms manufacturers and distributors have moved from a space of being providers of war making materials into multinational organisations which design and deploy whole systems which are changing the face of warfare. Multinational corporations have been linked with supplying the Israel Defense Forces with data processing and target decision-making systems which allow the kill chain to be shortened and atrocities to be carried out at a faster and much greater scale than ever before. We know now that autonomous weapons systems have become a reality, so we cannot allow our agencies to become tools of genocide through a lack of oversight about what corporations are engaged in in our country. Any commercial enterprise connected with military activity cannot be countenanced without democratic oversight, and the Government must continue to have oversight of military activity. In the opinion of the Labour Party, the deletion of section 8 must be reversed.

This Bill contains an array of different provisions, and as others have said, some of them are deeply concerning. It is worth considering why the Government has decided to throw so many different provisions into a single Bill. Many of these provisions deserve individual scrutiny. I have a few observations and questions I would be grateful if the Minister could answer.

Section 8 would delete section 8(5) of the Science and Technology Act 1987, which states that, "The Agency shall not engage or promote any activity of a primarily military relevance without prior approval of the Government." Much of the functions under that Act now lie with Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, and it seems the removal of this provision effectively will allow those agencies to freely engage with or even promote military industrial activity in Ireland, and that is extremely worrying.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion in these Houses in previous weeks about the sustained attacks from this Government on our neutrality. The provisions in section 8 of this Bill just underline those points. The priority of this legislation is not to protect our neutrality. The priority here is to ensure that Government agencies can ramp up their exploration of investment from the military-industrial complex into our economy. The focus here is entirely on the financial.

Coupled with this, section 11 contains extremely concerning provisions which essentially mean that the refusal of freedom of information, FOI, requests sent to Enterprise Ireland cannot be scrutinised by the Oireachtas and the agency is excluded from parliamentary mechanisms for analysing its decisions not to disclose information. If this Bill creates an ability for Enterprise Ireland to start promoting military industries in Ireland, it is critically important that the decisions made by its board, chief executive officer and staff be subject to appropriate public oversight. I ask the Minister of State to explain the rationale for the inclusion of the FOI provisions in the Bill.

Our neutrality is grounded in more than just non-participation in conflict. This is clear in our Constitution. Article 29 states that, "Ireland affirms its devotion to the ideal of peace and friendly co-operation amongst nations founded on international justice and morality." How can this be true when agencies of the State are trying to attract defence companies to Ireland to build their military technologies here? What is the oversight of the provision in section 8 if such advances are allowed to be made without Government approval and without any parliamentary scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act 2014?

Additionally, this Bill contains some entirely paradoxical proposals in section 7. In amendments to be made to the Dangerous Substances Act 1972, this Bill creates a new definition of "alternative fuel", which is defined as a fuel "which serves ... as a substitute for a fossil oil source ... [for the purposes of decarbonising and enhancing] the environmental performance of the transport sector". The definition goes on to include "liquefied petroleum gas, and liquefied natural gas". Of course, each of these alternative fuels is itself just a fossil fuel. Liquefied petroleum gas is derived from oil sources, so it is entirely nonsensical to include it in this list. Both liquefied natural gas, LNG, and natural gas also rely on processes for extraction and storage that are highly damaging to the environment and are clearly not sustainable alternatives to other fossil fuels. Will the Minister of State offer some clarity on the rationale in respect of how a fossil fuel sourced from oil can also be considered a substitute for a fossil fuel oil source? Go raibh míle maith agat.

The Minister of State is very welcome to the Chamber. I want to make a number of points specifically about section 5 as it relates to my home county of Wexford. This section concerns the ability of IDA Ireland to co-invest with other entities and third parties in providing property solutions. I think it has the potential to be transformational, particularly for rural counties such as Wexford. While we are grateful for any IDA support, it remains my belief that we have not got our fair share in recent years.

I will provide some statistics. From 2015 to 2024, there were 160 IDA visits to Waterford, 79 to Kilkenny, 54 to Carlow and only 41 to County Wexford during those nine years. The latest figures for 2025 show 20 visits to Waterford but only five to Wexford. Given that Wexford has the largest population in the south east, there is a strong feeling, and it is my view, that the IDA is not giving Wexford its fair share. When we ask the IDA the reason for this situation and what barriers we have in Wexford, one common response that comes back is that there is a lack of ready-made, purpose-built accommodation to bring a large business to.

In Enniscorthy, the IDA, with the support of Wexford County Council, is constructing an advance factory that is going to be 2,500 sq. m of industrial space, and the tender process is well under way. There is also a site at Butlersland in New Ross owned by Wexford County Council that has been zoned for 25 years. Unfortunately, while the site does have planning permission, it has not been possible to secure the private investment required to get it up and running. This section could be transformational, therefore, by allowing the IDA to set up a joint venture company with a private investor so that the private investor does not bear all the risk and financial obligation to cover the building costs. When this power is made available to the IDA, it is important that it is prioritised and used. It is one thing for the Oireachtas to provide the IDA with the power, but it is another thing for the IDA to use it. I think direct ministerial orders to the IDA will be required to ensure the agency maximises this power and sets up internal teams that will look for these joint ventures and get them up and running.

There are other sites across the south east, but I am speaking specifically about Wexford because there is a unique opportunity there. There are 3,404 IDA-supported jobs across Wexford in 22 companies, but there is an opportunity for it to be far more. The latest CSO figures show that the average worker in Wexford earned €48,000 last year, which is €10,000 less than the average worker elsewhere in the country. The IDA has an important role in making sure that better quality, well-paid jobs are provided to people who want to live and work in Wexford.

Given that this Bill has the potential to lift this barrier, I encourage the Members to support it. I accept that it is a large and wide-ranging Bill, but I am speaking specifically about this provision because what can be the case in Wexford can be the case in many other counties. Wexford County Council has a strong economic team under its director of services and chief executive, Mr. Eddie Taaffe, and it works hand in hand with the IDA. To be clear, I think Wexford needs more from the IDA than it is getting now. The county has the largest population centre in the south east and there is a genuine opportunity for growth in the area, given the resources we have. I thank the Minister of State.

I thank all the Senators for their heartfelt contributions. It was a very constructive and useful debate. I welcome the support expressed for the broad thrust of the Bill and its underlying objectives. I note that people have differing views. That is democracy.

The Bill will further enhance the ability of the enterprise development agencies, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, to drive investment and employment throughout the country. I note Senator Byrne referred to the IDA’s ability to enter joint ventures, and that might be with other State bodies. Anything that drives investment in areas in terms of additional jobs is welcome. We are always evolving and a very good development opportunity is provided in this Bill. It will ensure the enterprise agencies have the legislative tools they need to incentivise companies to accelerate their green and digital transitions. The legislation will also allow the IDA to enhance its property and infrastructure offerings to meet client demand and support regional development.

As the Minister, Deputy Burke, stated, this Bill will allow the enterprise agencies to better support enterprises that can play a role in strengthening our defence capabilities and, more broadly, in the fields of defence, security and resilience, which are of critical strategic importance to Ireland in a rapidly changing global context. As the Department of Defence noted to the Minister, Deputy Burke, the field of defensive technologies has developed to include areas such as cyber defence, space domain awareness and maritime surveillance, as well as hybrid threat monitoring.

I will elaborate on this point.

Senator Black made reference to this. The focus of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland is on working with companies with potential in the area of defensive technology. These are areas of great importance to our Defence Forces. The agencies need to be able to engage with such companies in a confidential manner. The agencies remain subject to ministerial direction under the Industrial Development Acts and overarching Government policy. In terms of the companies operating in the area, the regulatory regime is robust and multilayered and will be unchanged by the Bill. The regulatory regime and legislation in this area will continue. It does not impinge in any way on our neutrality. This is an operational matter in terms of how IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland can interact.

The matter of freedom of information under section 11 was raised. The legislation establishing Enterprise Ireland imposed statutory confidentiality obligations on its staff. A question was raised as to whether that may override Enterprise Ireland's obligations to disclose materials in response to freedom of information requests. This amendment to the freedom of information Act clarifies that Enterprise Ireland is obliged to disclose materials in response to freedom of information requests in line with the provisions of the Act. Enterprise Ireland has not previously relied on the confidentiality obligations of its establishment legislation to avoid releasing materials in line with the Freedom of Information Act. As a result, there will be no change to Enterprise Ireland's approach to freedom of information requests following this amendment. There will be full clarity as to Enterprise Ireland's obligations under the Freedom of information Act.

I thank the Senators for their contributions. On behalf of the Minister, Deputy Burke, I look forward to continuing to work with them as the Bill progresses through the Seanad.

I welcome the volunteer team from St. Joseph's Centre in Shankill who are special guests of the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. I hope they have a lovely visit to the House.

When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Next Tuesday.

Is that agreed? Agreed.