Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his team. I am concerned about what will happen to LEOs but I accept, as a fait accompli, that they will be established. As I have said on numerous occasions here, the quality of the county and city enterprise boards has been inconsistent, which brought them into disrepute, and I blame the Department. I was told by people on different county and city enterprise boards that some of its people were not up to the job and that boards did not have a strategy. Many of the boards were left to lie fallow without adequate funding and, therefore, I am critical of bureaucracy.

The Minister has put his heart and soul into his job and the Minister of State, Deputy John Perry, is also committed to small and micro-industries and knows the important role they play in creating employment. All of the paperwork and actions plans have left me worried about the projects. As much as 95% of the success of any project in any country is a direct result of the people at its helm, the drivers of the project. On numerous occasions here I have asked how we can ensure bureaucrats will not be transferred from local authorities to enterprise boards. We need people who are passionate about entrepreneurship and creating employment. We need people with a mission, not bureaucrats. I am sceptical about the initiative and I shall continue to be. I support the Minister's aims. However, we must closely monitor the initiative for the boards in order to ensure that the bureaucrats do not take over from the Department or a local authority. How will the boards be funded? Funding was a problem for the city and county enterprise boards. Some of them had loads of people but no money. What is their budget? There are good schemes and I know the Minister is doing his best. I would be happy if I could be convinced that the people joining the county and city enterprise boards were passionate about creating jobs, but with my experience of them I will be hard to convince.

Who will be the watchdog? Reference was made to Enterprise Ireland but I am concerned because bureaucrats do not create jobs, regardless of all the good reports and so on.

In terms of my experience, I differ from some of the people on this committee. The point about mentoring is exaggerated. I do not go with the idea that people will not have the stomach to develop a business and bring it to the market without being mentored by somebody.

Where will the funding come from? How will the Minister make sure, with all his passion for this area, that good people are employed by these enterprise boards who will be understanding of the people who come with the projects to create employment?