Opening Speech by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar TD, on Day 2 of the National Economic Dialogue 2021

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Good afternoon everyone. You’re very welcome to Day 2 of our National Economic Dialogue 2021.

Before we listen to feedback from yesterday’s break-out sessions, I want to say a few words about the government’s plans for economic recovery.

The recent Economic Recovery Plan charts a path forward, to build a better future. A future where social and economic progress go hand in hand.

The Plan provides a roadmap to navigate our immediate recovery, and also the fundamental and accelerating challenges and opportunities the country faces.

We want to:

• help people back into work
• ensure an inclusive recovery
• rebuild resilient, productive and profitable businesses
• restore the public finances to health

The Plan includes more than €3.5 billion in short-term stimulus and just under €1 billion additional funding under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan which will help kick start a jobs-led recovery and drive the economy forward to a decarbonised, more digital and more secure future.

We want to restore and then go beyond pre-pandemic employment levels by targeting a record 2.5 million people in work by 2024.

Crucially, we want to create jobs that are more sustainable, secure and valued.

Not all previous jobs will return – and capacity constraints may emerge quickly in certain areas, especially given the scale of investment required in areas like housing and climate.

The Plan reflects the magnitude of the challenge by increasing the capacity of the Public Employment Service or Intreo – enabling it to help an extra 100,000 people each year.

The new Pathways to Work Strategy will help people who lost their jobs during the pandemic or whose sectors have been transformed as a result of the pandemic – through intense activation and upskilling and reskilling opportunities.

We will place a particular focus on working with younger people at greater risk of long-term unemployment whose plans and lives have been derailed by the COVID-19 crisis.

We know that education, skills and lifelong learning are the most robust, transformative and lasting ways to help workers to adapt to change.

And we know that investing in people to build human capital – the potential of individuals – is the best way to prepare for the enormous opportunities arising from the green and digital transitions.

We are making good progress in providing 50,000 additional education and training places to aid upskilling and reskilling for the labour market.

Our ambitious new Work Placement Experience Programme aims to reach 10,000 participants, as well as providing €14 million for SOLAS’s Recovery Skills Response Programme.

We have already seen a significant recovery in the number of people registering for apprenticeships, following the introduction of the new apprenticeship incentivisation scheme.

These elements are all part of a wider reinvigoration of Ireland’s Skills Framework to ensure we are responding and adapting to evolving skills needs, closing skills gaps, and focusing on digital, green and broader areas of opportunity.

A new €40m investment in Technological Universities Transformation Fund will enable the development of TUs as drivers of regional development and educational opportunity.

We know that the pandemic has not affected everyone equally. It has had a disproportionately large impact on those who work in contact-intensive sectors, in food and accommodation, for example, many of whom are on lower pay and are younger or migrant workers.

We want to treat workers better after the pandemic. Essential workers – from doctors, nurses and Gardai – to delivery riders and shop assistants – have got us through this difficult time. And we must do more for them.

Later this year, I will be moving new legislation to introduce sick pay for almost all workers. This will make sure every worker, especially those lower paid workers in the private sector, will have the peace of mind in knowing that if they fall ill, their wages will be largely – if not fully – protected.

Following my request in April, the Low Pay Commission has formally begun work on examining how Ireland can move towards a living wage.

And we are progressing a series of reforms to unleash the potential of remote working, including the Right to Disconnect and the Right to Request Remote Working.

I believe these reforms can form part of a pandemic dividend – a positive legacy which can emerge from the hardship and sacrifice endured by the Irish people during the pandemic.

While we work on the future shape of the economy post pandemic there is still a need to provide clarity and certainty for businesses and employees over the period ahead through a new coherent package of extended and targeted schemes.

The Covid Restrictions Support Scheme has been extended indefinitely with an enhanced re-start payment and in September we will introduce a new Business Resumption Support Scheme for businesses which continue to be significantly impacted.

The Commercial Rates Waiver is being extended for a further three months and the Tax Debt Warehousing Scheme will continue to the end of 2021 with an interest free period during 2022.

My department is fast-tracking the introduction of a dedicated new alternative process to examinership to reduce costs and timelines – the Small Companies Administrative Rescue Process or SCARP.

As well as helping businesses and workers through the immediate challenges facing them, we must also look to the longer term. We need to put in place forward-looking policies that will create the right environment for an inclusive jobs-led recovery. That means helping business become more resilient and agile.

It means increasing Ireland’s competitiveness and productivity, placing a focus on expanding sectors, such as green and digital, life sciences, the creative industries and the health and care economy.

While productivity is not a term to grab the imagination, it is crucially important.

To quote, Joseph Stiglitz, "Increasing productivity is the only long-term sustainable way of increasing living standards and quality of life for our people".

Coming into this crisis, Ireland ranked high in terms of international competitiveness and productivity, but our high national productivity figures masked significant areas of underperformance. We were seeing a growing productivity gap between high-performing ‘frontier’ firms, often foreign-owned – and the rest of the economy.

If we want higher levels of productivity in our SME sector, we need to figure out how those companies can learn from the high performing multi-national cohort.

By focusing on the need to develop our indigenous enterprises, I am not proposing we take our eye off Foreign Direct Investment. Both require our attention.

The new IDA Ireland strategy to 2024 is targeting 800 investments and 50,000 jobs across the country, as well as strengthening linkages between FDI and domestic SMEs.

Under Enterprise Ireland’s Regional Enterprise Development Fund, €115 million is being invested in projects to strengthen regional enterprise in all regions. Future calls will help in the implementation of the nine new Regional Enterprise Plans under development to maximise growth opportunities in each region.

The pandemic has represented a dramatic and unprecedented social and economic shock for Ireland and the wider world and it’s not over yet. But we can now look to the future and be optimistic about building a more inclusive society and a more resilient, sustainable economy.

Thank you.