Remarks by the Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen, TD, at the Launch of The Report of the High Level Group on Green Enterprise, Wednesday, 2 December, 2009 at 12.45pm
A dhaoine uaisle,
Tá áthas orm a bheith anseo inniu chun Tuarascáil an Ghrúpa Ardleibhéil um Fhiontraíocht Ghlas a sheoladh.
Seachadann an Tuarascáil seo tiomantas a bhí i gCreat an Ghéilleagair Stuama a d’fhoilsíomar i mí na Nollag seo caite. Cabhróidh sé linn an fhís a leagamar síos a bhaint amach le go mbeimid in ann filleadh ar fhás inmharthana.
It is with great pleasure that I am here today to launch the Report of the High Level Group on Green Enterprise.
I would like to begin by thanking the Chair of the Group, Mr. Joe Harford.
I think Joe did an excellent job in dealing with a wide-ranging set of issues in a very short timeframe. In a few moments he will outline some of the key insights and recommendations from the report.
A special word of thanks must also go to each member of the Group, which brought together people with vast experience from the private and public sectors.
I will be going to Copenhagen later this month where world leaders will try to agree on a response to climate change. While global warming, energy security and other environmental pressures are real threats, they also present opportunities if we make the right decisions.
This Report delivers a commitment in the Smart Economy Framework we published last December. It will help us deliver our vision we set out there for a return to sustainable growth.
We are one of the most open economies in the world. The future of our economy will depend on exports. We need thousands of thriving Irish companies creating high-value products and services that will provide well-paid, quality employment.
We already have one of the best concentrations of high-tech multinationals in Ireland. Our plan is to incentivise them to invest further in high-value research and development areas and in the convergence of technologies that provide well-paid jobs that will stay in Ireland.
The global demand for environmental good and services is huge. The market is estimated to be worth around €700 billion. If we make the right moves, Ireland can benefit from that large and growing global market.
Moreover, Ireland needs a presence in GreenTech if we are to be a leader in technological convergence.
The twin challenges of climate change and energy security are significant drivers of innovation. They are driving, and will continue to drive, much of the activities of multinational companies.
We must strategically develop our own strengths in green enterprise so that we complement our existing strengths in areas such as ICT, biopharma, and medical devices and to provide new opportunities in construction and financial services.
Finally, Ireland faces its own environmental challenges and we can create employment and export opportunities as we address those challenges. Irish semi-states have already announced plans to invest €30 billion over the next 10-15 years in sustainable energy generation and the building of smart grids.
This Report is very focused, and it builds on research carried out previously by Forfás and InterTradeIreland which identified the opportunities for Ireland in the Environmental Goods and Services Sector.
The Group have now recommended specific initiatives which we can take to exploit these opportunities and, in a moment, Joe Harford, will summarise these so I won’t go into them in detail.
I particularly welcome the practical approach they have taken, suggesting areas where Ireland can make progress in the short-term.
The report suggests that there is potential to create 80,000 jobs in the coming years – helping to deliver on our ambitious economic renewal plan based around creating a Smart Economy.
It complements the work of the Innovation Taskforce which will report early next year, and many other initiatives we are taking to implement the Smart Economy Framework.
Of course, many other countries are also focusing on developing green enterprise.
We need therefore to be agile and identify the areas where Ireland can achieve a competitive advantage. This Report suggests where those opportunities are.
The publication of this Report is very timely. This day week, the Minister for Finance will present his Budget before the Dáil.
Despite the economic crisis, we are continuing to invest heavily in infrastructure. We have reviewed the Capital Programme as part of the Budget process, and that Review has been informed by our ambitions for economic renewal based on a smart, high-productivity low carbon economy.
This Report gives us a lot of good, achievable ideas which we can drive forward to deliver on that ambition. It shows that our ambitions are realistic and achievable, provided we select the right priorities and act quickly.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Renewal, which I chair, will oversee implementation and ensure that these ideas are prioritised across Government.
In conclusion, I would like to again thank the Group for the Report, and to invite Joe Harford to give a short presentation on its key recommendations.
ENDS