00:00and guys I'll say thank you so much for holding space to have these
00:05conversations today I personally find that conversation really very useful
00:09I'm huge thanks to Gordon and I the people that have been involved with this
00:13from from the university Graham somebody in my own constituency of Ligon Valley
00:18this is about having positive and proactive conversations in the room
00:23today and you've already seen evidence of that this morning from right across the
00:27room I'm actually really grateful to me and the perm second EFE who was here
00:31earlier and give some remarks and I think that they were really worthwhile we knew
00:35there was important work going on within the department across many areas whether
00:40it's in terms of skills or it's in terms of actually the energy piece another
00:45elephant in the room I'm great at mentioning all these elephants aren't
00:48available and RHI and hopefully we will have a conclusion to that coming soon and
00:54the reason that's so important is because we need to start marketing more
00:57than Ireland is a place where you can come and do business as you've just said and
01:01the renewable sector it's so important we have people here ready and willing to do
01:06that work we need to take those barriers away in terms of the policy piece but I
01:12think as well an important point that we've kind of picked up from the
01:15discussion this morning is that this is not something that's going to be done in
01:19isolation this is not something that begins and ends in one government
01:22department this is something that is a societal response that we have a
01:26responsibility as people around the table working in business community and
01:29voluntary within politics and the legislative end of things but we have a
01:34responsibility to act together and act cohesively I think that this morning is the start of a
01:40conversation of celebrating the good of what has been done a lot of hard work over
01:44many decades and companies that have already been doing this work it hasn't been
01:49something new to them it hasn't been something that they've had to have been dry kicking and screaming to they have been already doing and modeling and
01:55modeling this work really successfully so we know that's there but I think we're
02:01probably picking up from conversations from right at the start of the day to the
02:04last panel that there is going to be a challenge around how we better communicate this and that's incumbent on all of us and I think this is the start of having
02:12those fruitful and productive conversations where we go away and think we all get this right
02:17but how do we sell out to people at dome or how do we sell us in a different way and I think Steph one of the things that you said that really struck me was we don't have to take everyone with us you know we don't have to be evangelizers necessarily for this we need to foreground as John said different things and maybe it's about the value added sell of sustainable jobs stable jobs secure jobs cheap energy no one's going to argue with that
02:29there could be other bits that people will want to take issue with we can deal with that and but maybe not foreground those parts just as readily I think as we come to a close of this part of the morning I think it's really important to recognize as I've mentioned before the people that have been doing this work for a long time and the companies are going to be
02:59companies that have stayed with Northern Ireland through thick and thin and there have been challenging business environments over the last number of years in particular and there's no point shine away from that on a personal level from my perspective I am worried about the budget coming up on the 26th of November I think there are going to be other huge barriers in the way there in terms of how we actually do things but there are opportunities and Gordon talked at the top of my you know are you an optimist or pessimist I think probably I have
03:29a deep in the old sense of always being a bit of a pessimist to just try and keep survival mode on a go but there's got to be that contagious optimism and we have it it's there there are brilliant companies and people and ideas and policies that we have here now in this room the challenge is how do we get those out there are people here right throughout the day that you can speak to if you have ideas if you have things that you want to bring forward ultimately for me the heart of all of this has to be people
03:58we have to be constantly thinking of people in our minds how do we give them hope in the future how do we give them that better start because it's here it's on offer it is real it is tangible it is positive and it's happening but how do we harness that in a way that's positive and go out and share our positive story
04:18um so thank you to everybody for holding space to have these important discussions today um and I hope that as the rest of the day goes on it will continue in that same vein of idea sharing
04:29innovation breaking down barriers and coming up with a cohesive um ask and sell and argument that we can all go out um and put forward as we continue on with this work so thank you all so much and well done to everybody involved in today thank you
Be the first to comment