Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation and congratulate Enterprise Ireland on the great work it does. I have been working with Enterprise Ireland in a different capacity over the years. I have always found it gave everything and I know everyone in it works very hard. In particular, I compliment it on its offices abroad and the work it does abroad. Recently, I went on a parliamentary trip to Australia where we met people from Enterprise Ireland. If I ever get an opportunity to speak to the Minister, I will encourage him to increase those 28 offices to about 48 because it would be fantastic if we had more of them around the world, especially where we are trying to get into new markets.

I do not have a problem with failure. Where there are entrepreneurs, there is risk and there will be failure. The attitude in the US is completely different from the attitude here and we need to open up to that. Most people who fail in business once will go on to succeed the next time or the time after that. I would like to see far more turnover going into Enterprise Ireland than words about how many succeeded and failed because where there is failure, success usually follows.

I am a bit concerned about some of the language we are using in connection with the report and LEOs. Again, much of it is linked to exports. My view of the LEO is that it was aimed at getting people started so I am a bit concerned about that. There seems to be a mess in respect of the one-stop shop. I thought that when the LEOs went into local authorities, they would use more of a one-stop shop approach. If a business needed planning or support, everyone could work together. The LEOs have been challenged by a lack of funding and considerable administrative costs over the past eight or nine years. In particular, the funding has not been increased in the past four or five years. My understanding was that when they were subsumed into local authorities, there would be streamlining where there was duplication of work and there would be better outcomes and efficiency as a result. Again, that does not seem to be in the report but perhaps that is part of the implementation process. Those are my concerns.

My greatest concern is that I have not seen anything in the report about relationship managers meeting businesses locally. Most businesses are usually small, employing one to three people. They are trying to manage sales and deal with the bank, procurement and everything. They do not have the time to look at all the websites or go through all the stuff Enterprise Ireland and the local authorities offer. If we are to grasp the opportunity that exists in Ireland and globally, we must put people on the ground to help others get through this process. Again, the clustering is fantastic and there many opportunities. All the multinationals, of which there are 600, are more than happy to help small companies get off the ground, but for some reason we do not seem able to create the pathway for that to work smoothly. The only way we can do that is to have people on the ground, which would be my one big ask. Otherwise, it will just be changing the name of what is in place. The reason we are changing it is because it is not working to its optimum level and we need it to work at this level in the challenging times we face.