Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 April 2022
84. Deputy Cormac Devlin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the way that he is supporting digital transformation in Irish enterprises; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18665/22]
View answerEmbracing digital technologies is crucial for our post pandemic economic recovery. A competitive, innovative and resilient enterprise base is essential to provide high-quality jobs and employment opportunities for people to live and prosper in all regions. Businesses can harness digital technologies in many ways – including to better understand their customers, reduce their costs and improve their products.
In February, the Government launched the new National Digital Strategy, Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework. One of the key dimensions of this strategy is the digitalisation of enterprise, which sets out specific targets including: 75% enterprise take-up of cloud, big data, and AI by 2030; 90% of SMEs at a basic level of digital intensity by 2030; at least 35% of state funding for start-up and early-stage businesses invested in innovative digital businesses from 2022; and at least 800 businesses supported under the new Digital Transition Fund by 2026. This Digital Transition Fund (DTF) is part of Ireland's National Recovery and Resilience Plan. It is an €85 million multi-annual fund which will run until 2026. Under Budget 2022, €10 million has been allocated to the Digital Transition Fund. Through the DTF, we will increase digitalisation of all businesses across products, processes, supply chains and business models. The funding will be used to help companies at all stages of their digital journey – from the early days of simply going online to digitalisation of products and business processes, to facilitating exporting and to using digital technologies (such as AI, cloud, and big data) to develop new markets and business models. Officials in my Department are currently developing the funding scheme along with Enterprise Ireland and the first call will be announced by mid-2022.
My Department is also establishing an Enterprise Digital Advisory Forum, which will bring together representatives of indigenous Irish enterprise, multinational corporations and experts in digital to advise and work with Government to drive industry adoption of digital technologies by enterprise. I expect that Forum will identify more practical measures that Government can deploy to promote digitalisation.
As part of the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL), the European Commission and EU Member States will establish and co-fund a network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs). These hubs will support digital transformation in SMEs and public sector organisations by encouraging the adoption of the latest advances in the three digital key technologies of Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing. EDIHs will serve as “one-stop-shops” with a research performing organisation at the core, providing access to technical expertise and experimentation, as well as innovation services, and the training and skills development necessary for successful digital transformation.
In December 2020 Enterprise Ireland administered the national designation process for the EDIH network and will have operational responsibility for the EDIHs in Ireland. The expression of interest call for Irish EDIHs closed January 20th 2021, with nine entries received. As a result of that process, four candidate EDIHs from Ireland have been designated to go forward to the Commission restricted call for the EU-wide network. Evaluation of the applications commenced in March, with results expected in May. It is anticipated that the network of EDIHs will be operational in Q3 2022.
