Mr. Terence O'Rourke:

I am honoured to have been asked by the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, to become chairman of Enterprise Ireland. I thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for the invitation to come before it today. It is a privilege for me to be here.

If it is not too self-indulgent I take this opportunity to introduce myself to the committee, provide it with an overview of my professional background, and give it my initial impressions of Enterprise Ireland. I appreciate the members have just heard a comprehensive briefing from the Enterprise Ireland chief executive officer, Mr. Frank Ryan, and his colleagues. I will also outline the key areas of focus I see for the organisation for the next few years as well as the role of the chairman in addressing them. Following that I would welcome any questions the members may wish to ask.

I grew up in Inniskeen, County Monaghan - I am very proud of my native county this week - the second son of seven surviving siblings; I have four brothers and two sisters. After completing primary level in the local national school I went to boarding school in Castleknock College in Dublin, after which I studied economics and history in UCD. It was the mid-1970s, post the first oil shock, and career opportunities were scarce in the country. For me it was a choice between the Civil Service and something related to business. Although my academic qualifications were not in the commercial area I had grown up in a family business and when it was suggested to me that a route from my arts degree to a possible business career might be through an accountancy qualification, I decided to do that. After qualification I could then decide the track to further follow.

I should explain that my father owned and managed two small mills in Inniskeen and Dundalk making animal feed as well as oatmeal and wheaten meal for human consumption. I grew up helping out in the mill, working with the lorries delivering pig and poultry meals throughout counties Monaghan, Louth and Cavan, and in the office. The business had been founded by my grandfather but it has not survived to the third generation as larger, more ambitious companies squeeze out the last water mill on the River Finn and a slightly larger Dundalk-based companion.

As well as growing and developing the family milling business, my grandfather had been one of the consortium which rescued Belleek Pottery in County Fermanagh in the early 1920s, and subsequently my father had been chairman of that world-renowned family-owned Irish craft business. Thus, I grew up in a household that debated the challenges and opportunities of developing a privately-owned business in the face of fierce competitive pressures, an environment that characterises most indigenous Irish companies. The importance of export markets was also brought home by the exploratory shipping and branding of Irish porridge oats for the United States in the 1960s and the strong if modest continuing demand for Belleek's unique charms from its devotees overseas, mostly in North America.

When I successfully qualified as a chartered accountant in 1979 with a leading Irish firm, Stokes Kennedy Crowley, or SKC, later to become KPMG, I decided it would be good for me to get broader experience by spending some time abroad. I was lucky to get a post with KPMG's office in Boston, Massachusetts, where I spent almost two years getting to see from the inside the remarkably robust and vibrant US economy. When that posting finished I was expected to bring back my additional experience and expertise to the Irish firm. Given the very tough economic conditions of the early 1980s, I resisted the temptation to return to the by now struggling family businesses and decided to invest further in my professional career, still unsure as to what should be my medium or long-term career horizons.

I found that I got to love the challenges of auditing and devising a portfolio of Irish and foreign-owned businesses and progressed within KPMG to partnership in 1988. My clients ranged from large foreign direct investment, FDI, companies, public limited companies, PLCs, State-owned commercial enterprises, and banks, insurance and investment management firms, starting with the nascent IFSC, to entrepreneurial, privately-owned successful and growing indigenous companies. I was elected managing partner of KPMG, a role equivalent to chief executive in a company, in 2006. I was re-elected in 2009 for a second term, and I have just completed a second and final term in that role, and retiring from the partnership of KPMG at the end of April.

KPMG is among the largest professional services firms in Ireland, with approximately 80 partners and 1,800 staff. As managing partner of KPMG I have also chaired the KPMG Ireland executive team and the firm's elected board. As a senior partner in the Irish firm I was a member of KPMG International's 25-person global board and, separately, the EMA board, as well as being one of the ten country senior partners who are members of KPMG's global executive team, the top governance body of the global network of our firms. That experience gave me contacts and insights into business and economic developments in developed and developing countries around the world.

With reference to other boardroom experience, I am currently a non-executive director of The Irish Times Limited and of the Dublin Theatre Festival.

In addition, I am a member of the council of the Irish Management Institute and the advisory board of the Women's Executive Network Ireland. I am also chairman of Enactus Ireland, an organisation which involves businesses supporting and sponsoring student teams - currently featuring seven leading universities in Ireland - to develop and put into action social innovation projects and programmes which address real social needs, using business and entrepreneurial principles and strategies.

I was recently asked to join the board of the Institute of International and European Affairs. I have been active in professional associations, thus gaining insights into the issues facing accountants advising Irish companies North and South.

I was chairman of the then Society of Chartered Accountants in 1990, and was elected to the council of the all-Ireland Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland in 1994. I was president of the institute in 2004-05. I have represented the institute and the Tánaiste's review group on Auditing 2000 which recommended the establishment of the current regulatory framework for auditors and accountants in Ireland.

Finally, I have been a board member of the Chartered Accountants' Regulatory Board since 2007. It is an innovation of the institute that acts as a separate group, with a majority of non-accountants, to develop and approve the detailed regulations and administer the inspection and disciplinary regimes for chartered accountants in Ireland.

One of the great advantages of having been an auditor and adviser is that I have had extensive experience and exposure to the corporate governance and business issues that a wide range of boards face both in the public and private sectors. I will be happy to expand on any aspect of my background. I have separately provided a detailed resumé to assist the committee in this regard.

I would now like to speak about Enterprise Ireland itself. Although KPMG has many interactions with EI, I was not deeply familiar with the details of the organisation, nor its detailed operating issues, prior to the beginning of the process. The several weeks since the Minister, Deputy Bruton, approached me about this role, have therefore been particularly interesting. I have met a number of the organisation's executives and have read as much about the business of the organisation as time has allowed.

Although my impressions at this stage are not as developed as I hope they will be in time, I would nonetheless like to share them with the committee. My strong impression is that Enterprise Ireland is a competent, well-run and effective organisation. The executive is sophisticated and dedicated and what it has achieved, particularly over the last four or five years, is impressive. I do not make this statement lightly and do so only by reference to my experience of other Irish and international companies of which we, as a country, should be proud.

The committee will have heard from Frank Ryan of the impressive achievements of EI over the last year when it supported client companies in achieving record exports of over €16.2 billion in 2012, while EI client companies also increased full-time employment to over 145,000 last year. Additionally, EI continued to be extremely active in such areas as funding early-stage and high potential start-up companies, building leadership and management capability within companies, supporting research and development, transferring innovation from third-level research to real commercial exploitation, and investing in an increasing range and amount of equity and venture funds.

This is not to deny that EI needs to continue to sharpen its focus on a number of issues in the immediate period ahead. I see these issues arising under a number of different headings. The first of the issues is the appointment of a new chief executive. I know Mr. Frank Ryan and have seen his work and the team he has built around him. It is clear to me that he has been an excellent chief executive who will be particularly hard to replace. The identification and appointment of a new chief executive is a particularly important job for the new chairman and I intend to devote significant energy to it over the next while.

The second area of focus for me is maintaining a strong and effective board. The board is currently in some transition, with the terms of a number of members expiring this year, in addition to the completion of a successful term for chairman, Mr. Hugh Cooney, and Frank Ryan's own departure later in the year. It is, of course, a matter for the Minister as to who is appointed to the board but I intend to work with him to identify the optimal blend of skills and people to move the work of EI forward.

It will also be a central part of the chairman’s role to continue to ensure strong communication and transparency between the organisation and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, as well as to engender a purposeful and cohesive dynamic in the EI board itself. Another area of focus will be to make sure that EI is collaborating sensibly and constructively with other Departments and agencies - especially the IDA and Bord Bia - and with the local authorities as they work on integrating the established strong network of county and city enterprise boards into the about to be established Local Enterprise Offices, or LEOs.

A fourth area of focus for me will be to help EI deal with the challenges that face management as it adapts and reshapes the organisation to reflect the pressure on resources, especially staff resources, that arises as a result of currently constrained Exchequer funding. Lastly, EI will soon be commencing the development of a new strategic plan for the period 2014-16, which will set out the priority areas for the agency to focus on over the coming three years and beyond, in order to drive entrepreneurship, job creation and export growth in an effort to deliver a significant and necessary contribution to the economic recovery of the State.

It will be a privilege for me to become chairman of Enterprise Ireland and to work with the board, the executive and the staff in the organisation. My goal as EI chairman will be to manage and lead the agency’s board in an effective and efficient manner. Working closely with the board of the organisation and with a focus on the policy objectives communicated by the Minister, I intend to challenge and encourage the chief executive and the management team to continue to develop Enterprise Ireland in accordance with the country's needs, to provide a quality and supportive environment for ambitious indigenous Irish companies as they strive to make their way in the world, adding jobs and winning export sales for Ireland.

I thank the Chairman and other members of the joint committee for the invitation to appear before them today. I will be pleased to take any questions.