Mr. Frank Ryan:

We have a network of offices overseas with 134.5 full-time equivalent staff. Where EI has overseas offices, the objective is to maximise their effectiveness and they are co-located with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I welcome the opportunity to address this issue because there is a little disinformation going around. Of our more than 20 overseas offices, 15 are currently co-located with an embassy or consulate, six are co-located with other Government agencies and the balance cannot be located beside an embassy. For example, in Australia, our office is in Sydney, which is the business capital, but the government capital is Canberra and there is no reason for us to have an office there. In Brazil, our office is in Sao Paulo but the government office is in Brasilia. Our embassies are located in Canberra and Brasilia and it does not make sense, therefore, to have us located there. In India, both ourselves and the IDA have a joint office in Mumbai, which is the business capital whereas the government capital is New Delhi. There are business reasons for us not being co-located in a small number of countries but we are co-located in 15 countries. The policy is clearly that first we co-locate with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade if possible. Second, if we cannot do that, we co-locate with the IDA or other Government agencies. It is only because of business demand that we have a small number of stand-alone offices overseas.

The Deputy mentioned the issue of resources earlier. We have permission to have a full staff complement overseas of 149.5. However, in recent months, we have been working with our parent Department and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and we have submitted a plan to increase our overseas representation by 20 posts. These are people who would be employed in the field, not expatriates who would be sent from Ireland to these markets. That plan has been endorsed by the Minister and it is currently awaiting consideration by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We believe there is an opportunity by 2015 for up to €250 million in additional exports from this resource, which we estimate conservatively would create 1,200 jobs in Ireland. We are strong in markets such as the UK, near Europe, Australia, Canada and United States but they are not the economies that are growing fastest now and, therefore, we have to be where the action is. We have set out a plan that would see us put additional resources into Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, south east Asia, Korea, the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC - specifically, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman - Turkey and Japan. We have to go where the business opportunity is now and we hope the Department will view the submission positively.