Ireland will use EU presidency to advance competitiveness, Tánaiste told Amazon
Amazon
has been told by Tánaiste
Simon Harris
that Ireland will use its presidency of the
European Union
next year to 'advance the competitiveness agenda'.
Mr Harris also told executives from the online retail and cloud computing giant that Ireland has worked to 'control what we can control' in the current economic climate. This is a key Government message against a backdrop of uncertainty over
US trade tariffs
on EU goods.
Amazon, which employs 6,500 people in Ireland and has invested some €22 billion here since 2004, has been vocal in recent years on the need for Europe to boost its competitiveness.
Last month The Irish Times reported that the company has
scrapped plans for a €300 million industrial plant in Dublin
because it could not secure an electricity supply for the project.
READ MORE
Mr Harris, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, met representatives of Amazon in Government buildings on May 21st.
A Government note of the meeting was released after a Freedom of Information law request.
It says: 'The Tánaiste referenced the current economic climate and listed a number of upcoming initiatives as Ireland worked to control what we can control. Steps in train include the summit on competitiveness and the Action Plan for Competitiveness and Productivity.'
The note adds: 'The Tánaiste highlighted Ireland's presidency of the Council of the European Union from July to December 2026 where Ireland will also continue to advance the competitiveness agenda. Developments at EU level were noted including as regards simplification and supporting innovations.'
During Ireland's eighth presidency, which it will share with Lithuania and Greece, Irish representatives will chair meetings of EU ministers in the EU Council, steer the council's legislative and policy agenda and lead engagement with other EU institutions.
In recent months Amazon has been publicly pushing for measures it argues would improve EU competitiveness.
These include easing 'regulatory compliance burdens' for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) regarding producer responsibility recycling schemes that deal with waste items such as packaging and batteries.
Recent online posts show Amazon wants digital labelling of products, the 'smooth implementation' of a planned EU VAT 'one-stop shop', and better charging infrastructure for electric commercial vehicles.
[
Amazon fiasco is bad news for Ireland Inc
Opens in new window
]
One of the participants in the meeting between Amazon and Mr Harris, the company's vice-president for EU public policy Lucy C Cronin, wrote last month that the current Danish presidency of the EU has prioritised a 'secure Europe' and a 'competitive and green Europe'.
Ms Cronin said the Danish government 'plans to 'focus on regulatory simplification and better regulation in the EU to ease daily operations for businesses and other stakeholders''.
She suggested two areas 'where the Danes can turn these aspirations into a meaningful upside for EU SMEs – and therefore EU citizens' are: 'The simplification of fragmented extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes' and 'the progression toward digital labelling'.
Amazon declined to comment on whether it has asked the Irish Government to focus on specific areas during its EU presidency.
The other Amazon attendees at the meeting with Mr Harris were vice-president and UK and Ireland country manager John Boumphrey, Amazon country manager for Ireland Alison Dunn and AWS country lead Niamh Gallagher.
The note of the meeting says Amazon updated Mr Harris on the launch this year of its Irish store Amazon.ie, of developments in its cloud computing business, and its climate action initiative.
[
Staff at loss-making Amazon subsidiary in Dublin earned average €124,000 last year
Opens in new window
]
The meeting took place before the deal last month between the EU and US that sees 15 per cent tariffs apply to goods entering the US from the EU.
The note says Mr Harris spoke about the Government's 'efforts to support industry' and its trade forum and how that body 'would be happy to engage with Amazon's sector'.
Mr Harris is said to have 'highlighted the Government's willingness to work with the sector in navigating the present economic uncertainty'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
22 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Commission of inquiry into abuse in day and boarding schools must become truly survivor-centred
A commission of inquiry into allegations of historical sexual abuse in day and boarding schools has been established by the Government with a time frame to report within five years. The commission will begin its work in October and the cost is likely to 'run into tens of millions of euro', Minister for Education Helen McEntee said last month as the inquiry was announced. [ What will Ireland's costly five-year schools abuse inquiry achieve? ] She also said the Government would 'pursue all levers available' to compel religious organisations to pay redress to victims of historical sex abuse in schools . While survivors of day and boarding schools are not a homogeneous group, and their justice interests reflect this, some themes continually emerge in research and practice: the desire for acknowledgment, validation, vindication, truth, exercise of voice, meaningful participation, access to records, reparation/redress and non-recurrence. READ MORE An in-depth international study, Transforming Justice Responses to Non-Recent Institutional Abuses, published in book form earlier this year, found fear and the breakdown of trust operated as significant barriers to effective engagement by church and state. This has resulted in an accountability gap for survivors and reputational damage for church and state institutions. The reluctance of those in the church to admit responsibility for abuses can be related to fear, including of viability beyond the financial costs of settling civil cases or contributing to state or other redress schemes. Benevolent intentions on the part of state participants can also be superseded by concerns with legal and financial liability. Senior politicians on both sides of the Border emphasised budgetary concerns at the forefront of political decision-making, including the fear of state exposure to a wide range of claims. Survivors also face significant barriers to justice from adversarial legal frameworks that include delays, statutes of limitations, data protection, exclusionary redress schemes, inequality of arms and the costs of legal proceedings. Law and legal culture become a hostile site for all sides, causing secondary harm for victim/survivors. New approaches must therefore be found. Some modifications to the Government's terms of reference for the new commission and the commission's approach could help in this regard. The sampling methodology should be replaced by a modularised approach, focusing on individual institutions and settings, producing modularised, interim investigatory reports at regular intervals. These could be delivered within months of the commission commencing its work and not waiting for five [or more] years. This approach was adopted to good effect by Australia's Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse and by the Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales. The sampling methodologies used by the commissions of investigation into the Archdiocese of Dublin and into the mother and baby homes in Ireland were not fit for purpose. Provision for a survivor engagement programme by the commission – through which survivors can share the impact of their experiences – is not adequate in giving voice to the testimonies of survivors who have much more to say about the abuses they suffered than about its impact on them. If we want to learn from the mistakes of the past, the commissioners need to survivors with lived experience on their teams A summary report given to the chairperson is not sufficient for this core part of the inquiry. A suitable methodology must be developed to enable survivor testimonies to be fully represented as cumulative evidence in the final report of the commission. It is laudable that the commission strives to be as survivor-centred as possible. It would be worth therefore publicising the training that all members of the commission will receive in trauma-informed and victim-centred approaches before they begin their work. More importantly, if the commission wants to give true effect to being as survivor-centred as possible in more than a paternalistic manner, a mechanism must be found to enable survivors to be represented as co-participants in the inquiry process. If we want to learn from research and from the mistakes of the past, the commissioners need to have survivors with lived experience on their teams, appointments for which must be made by open competition. Research by Diane Vaughan at Columbia University demonstrated the composition of commissions is hugely important to their findings and outcome. It is essential the commission holds public hearings and round tables on specific topics (televised where possible), as well as private sessions, in the interest of transparency and accountability. A problem with previous commissions of investigation was that they were accountable to no one, not even the Dáil. There is a discernible appetite for doing justice differently among survivors and church and state participants. The challenge is how to get the various interests working together to get to the truth, including the policy wrongs, abuses and failures of the past, in the interest of justice, healing and accountability. Mechanisms must be found to build trust between the parties based on openness and transparency, a sharing of records and respect for all perspectives. In this regard the terms of reference must be amended to include restorative justice as requested by many survivors to the scoping inquiry team, which last year recommended the commission be set up The restorative justice request from survivors was largely ignored in the report of the scoping inquiry and is not mentioned at all in the terms of reference of the commission. If we truly want to be survivor-centred, we cannot exclude the voices of some survivors because they do not suit a particular political agenda. Although we might be getting a bit better in how we approach these things, we still have a lot to learn. Professor Marie Keenan, school of social policy, social work and social justice at University College Dublin, is co-author with Prof Anne-Marie McAlinden and Dr James Gallen of Transforming Justice Responses to Non-Recent Institutional Abuses, published by Oxford University Press
Irish Times
6 hours ago
- Irish Times
Irish consumers missed out on €66.7m in uncashed bottle deposit returns last year
Irish consumers missed out on €66.7 million last year when they failed to cash in their deposits for soft drink containers through the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). Re-turn's 2024 annual report shows the failure to redeem these depositswas the chief reason behind the State-backed firm recording a pretax surplus of €51.3 million last year. Established by the Government, Re-Turn began its DRS operations on February 1st, 2024 with the aim to significantly increase the recycling rates of bottles and cans. Last year, 877.85 million containers were returned, made up of 433.2 million plastic bottles and 444.6 million cans. READ MORE Re-turn recorded revenues of €114.4 million in 2024. This included the €66.7 million in unredeemed deposits and €47.7 million made up of €17.2 million from the sale of material and €30.5 million from 'producer fees'. The company's 2024 costs totalled €62.2 million, made up of direct collection and recycling costs of €46.5 million and administrative expenses of €15.7 million, which included a spend of €4.6 million on 'marketing, communications, and public awareness'. Influencers beware, Revenue is on the prowl Listen | 48:38 The report says 'unredeemed deposits are an expected and routine scenario for deposit return schemes and it was anticipated that in the initial transition period redemptions would be low and therefore there would be a high level of unredeemed deposits'. The report for the not-for-profit states, 'the fees from unredeemed containers are being reinvested in a number of ways'. These include paying off initial scheme set-up costs, infrastructure development, consumer education campaigns and contributing to its legally required contingency reserve. Income from unredeemed deposits 'is expected to significantly reduce as the scheme reaches its targeted redemptions of 90 per cent in the coming years'. Re-turn chief executive Ciarán Foley said: 'Thanks to the incredible buy-in and adoption from the Irish public, 877 million containers were returned through DRS in 2024, equating to an average 66 per cent post-transition period recycling rate. 'The seasonality of the soft drinks market was reflected in some even higher months, such as in August when the return rate reached 75 per cent. Every 1 per cent increase equates to around 19 million containers.'
RTÉ News
9 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Over 200 protest US military use of Irish airspace at Shannon Airport
Over 200 people have staged a protest at Shannon Airport to protest against the US military use of Irish airspace and to stop what they say is the transportation of weapons destined for Israel. The rally was organised by the Limerick branch of Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and Shannonwatch. "Failing the stopping of American military going through, at the very minimum, the Government should be inspecting the planes to see what's on them and to ensure they're not carrying weapons," said Zoë Lawlor, Chairperson of the IPSC. "We also are demanding sanctions from the government on Israel. I mean, the situation now is catastrophic. They're going to occupy Gaza City, intensifying the genocide. It's going to be even more bloody. "They're deliberately starving people to death, and it is because of the impunity that all states, including Ireland, have granted to Israel that we've gotten to this stage. "We want the full implementation of the Occupied Territories Bill with services included, and we want the Central Bank to stop regulating Israel's war bond." 'Waiting for your own death' Tamara Nijim is a Palestinian woman living in Ireland for the past two years. She has been joined by her sister Marah, whom she managed to here on a scholarship three months ago. Marah addressed the rally on the situation she fled from. "All I can say is it's a nightmare that is not stopping. It's a nightmare we're not walking from it. It's waiting for your own death by seconds, waiting to see yourself as an orphan, waiting to see your home bombed, waiting to lose your friends, waiting to be killed. "That's what I can say. It's worse than a movie. It's the worst thing ever. It's a war. It's genocide." Tamara says it's very difficult for them to leave family behind in Gaza. She moved here one month before the war to finish her studies "We're here at Shannon today because our families are really, really struggling. They're starving and now they can die any minute, and it's very, very difficult. "We're here to object in what is going on. And because this is genocide going in there and we try to stop as much as we can the things that are happening there. Because any rocket, any bomb that could pass, could be the reason for a family death in a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes" Tamara says there is a price for speaking out but she and her sister cannot stand by and say nothing "We're here to talk about what's going on but it's still very difficult, because there's a price for speaking up about the situation, because once you speak up, your name goes all over the internet. "You might also lose your family, but we all have something to lose, and we have to speak for the people of Palestine. We should not be also only thinking about our only family, because everybody in Palestine is our family."
