Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 February 2023
64. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the amount of funding allocated for the European Space Agency programme under the Supplementary Estimate for 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9142/23]
View answerIreland has significantly grown its investment in the European Space Agency (ESA) in recent years in line with the National Strategy for Space Enterprise 2019 – 2025, which seeks to build an economically sustainable and expanding space-active industry, delivering quality jobs for the economy of tomorrow.
The supplementary estimate referred to in the Deputy’s question is determined towards the end-of year therefore, it is not possible to determine at this time what allocation, if any, may be made to ESA through the supplementary estimate for 2023. For 2023 the Department has allocated a budget of €22.87million to ESA mandatory and optional programmes.
Through increased funding of ESA over recent years we have seen the number of Irish based companies engaged with ESA increasing by 39% since the publication of the Strategy, growing from 70 in 2019 to 97 in 2022. In 2021 16 start-up companies secured ESA contracts and Industry co-investment also increased from €3.3m in 2020 to over €4.6m in 2021.
We are committed to continuing to engage with industry and researchers to ensure that we have a strong expanding space-active enterprise base in Ireland. The announcement last November of further funding for ESA of €125m up to 2027 is an important signal to the sector that we intend to support and grow the enterprise and research base to ensure that Irish enterprises are equipped to seize new opportunities promised by the evolving global space market for business, research, society, the economy and the environment.
