Mr. Tom Hayes:

I have figures for every single county in Ireland, but I am not sure if it is worthwhile going through each one of those right now. However, we try to ensure that there is a regional spread of entrepreneurship emanating from the west. We have an office with a director based in Galway. We have supported a number of community enterprise centres in Galway and in some of the other counties like Roscommon, Mayo and Leitrim. We work with the university to support the incubation centre. We work with institute of technology in Galway in the New Frontiers Programme, which is our flagship programme in supporting early stage start-up companies. These consist of individuals with good business ideas. We provide training in all areas of business and mentoring, networking with other entrepreneurs and introduction to investors.

We have had a specific call for competitive feasibility within the regions. We piloted this in the south east and we extended that to cover practically all regions in Ireland. We got a very good response in the west and a number of those companies are being supported. Those companies that do not exhibit the ability to grow in scale are working with the local county enterprise board. We have worked with third level institutes North and South of the Border in the Think Outside the Box awards. We had over 400 applications. Last year's winner was from NUIG and we had already supported that company. Although the company was run by students, they have been so innovative, they have since formed a business and are developing that in NUIG. This year's awards took place in Galway as well.

We want to support the regional networks and hubs. We want to ensure that entrepreneurship and the existing client base is well supported.