Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Different things are going on in those budgets. For example, let us consider Enterprise Ireland. Part of the reason for the under-spend in those figures was that the take-up in the innovation fund was less rapid.

The people were not as quick to come in with matching funds and therefore it did not get the take-up that had been budgeted for; that came later.

Essentially, the capital allocation is a reflection of activity under a number of headings. What we spend this year reflects decisions made over a number of years and also in terms of take-up. With the innovation fund, it is only as they pay out that we draw down capital as investments are made from an innovation fund. We make a commitment of, say, €250 million to an innovation fund. We do not pay it out until there are investments from that fund. We commit to match funding but it is only as the deal flow comes along that we pay out. That is the way the fund is made up. It is not as easy to read the activity levels just from the sums of money. IDA activity levels are rising even though its capital budget is nominally falling.

Regarding the county and city enterprise boards, CEBs, we are making very good progress in respect of the local enterprise offices, LEOs. Obviously, the reorganisation of 35 bodies takes time. We have published a service level agreement between Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs. We have an agreement with the local authorities in terms of the staff allocation that will go to each office. We are going through the process of identifying where these will operate, if they are different from their existing operation levels, and we are drafting the legislation that will shortly come to the House, which will only be the final phase of its introduction. This is a first-stop-shop for business. As part of the roll-out we have entered into what might be called memoranda of understanding with groups like the Revenue Commissioners so that if someone goes in to the LEO he or she will have, at the turn of a switch, so to speak, access to, say, the seed capital scheme where one gets tax relief. We are trying to make it an easy access point. Work is being done on memoranda of understanding to ensure that at the LEO front desk there will be access to those back office services from different agencies.

The legal cost is simply a contingency provision that I gather we make each year. It is to ensure there is a provision.

Deputy Tóibín's question is on the same issue. He is referring to the 6% decline under the jobs heading. It does reflect the capital budgets and the way they have moved. One needs to go below that to see the actual activity level but in terms of job approvals of projects, IDA Ireland approvals of projects are up. Enterprise Ireland approvals of projects are up and are on their target levels.

Regarding the new capital investment schemes and the likes of the development capital scheme, after we approve them there is then a fund-raising period during which our partners have to go out and raise matching funds. We are putting in seed capital. Our expectation is that it will be a 3:1 ratio, namely, private partners will raise €3 for every €1 we put in. We have put out €100 million to invitation and we expect that to be matched with €300 million on top of that while, obviously, giving fund managers the period to raise that money. We do not yet have a deal flow on those funds but the last seed capital fund, and we have only announced a new one, will be running 35 or 40 deals per year, in other words, significant seed investment of approximately that number of new companies each year. Overall, there are 95 high potential start-ups, 35 of which might be getting money from the seed and venture capital funding arrangements.

I gave the Deputy the credit guarantee figures.