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

It is almost €18.2 million. Consultancy spending by IDA Ireland came to €740,000, out of a total of €17 million in its non-pay budget. I can assure the committee that IDA Ireland oversees offices in the BRIC countries. It has 17 staff between the Asia-Pacific region and its growth markets overall. It has a target of getting 20% of its greenfield investments from those growth markets. Those staff go beyond the BRIC countries. They work across a range of countries, including Singapore, Korea, Japan and Australia. They are moving closer to the long-term target of 20%.

The IDA announced a number of property solutions for Waterford, Athlone and Letterkenny. Waterford and Athlone are important regions for the pharmaceuticals sector. During the period when the property sector was strong, there was significant willingness to build without IDA involvement. The agency views the property issue from the perspective of need and intervenes where it considers a region's offering needs to be fortified to continue to win investment. It will act if there is tightness in the property market and an opportunity arises on which the market is unlikely to deliver. I expect it will continue to pursue this type of strategy, rather than one based on the old concept of "build it and they will come", in other words, advance factory building. This approach will no longer work because companies must consider a much wider range of factors than was the case previously when the type of employment involved was largely lower skilled, assembly type operations. At that time, advance factories were obviously a critical success factor but property is no longer as much of a success factor as companies must consider a wider range of issues before locating here. Although it no longer has quite the same allure, property is still important in certain sectors.

There is a particular tightness in the office market at present, especially in Dublin. The IDA is working with the National Asset Management Agency and Dublin City Council which is developing a special development zone in the docklands. There are areas where a requirement for property needs to be met. The IDA will also weigh need against the potential of the market to deliver in cities such as Cork and Galway. The agency's property manager will assess what is likely to emerge in each of the various cities relative to the pipeline of investment and try to ensure it remains one step ahead. That is the basic approach.

Deputy Kyne also asked about the Ireland House concept. This approach has proved effective and is used wherever it can be developed. It is under constant review to identify where we can obtain greater added value. Enterprise Ireland has successfully co-located with Irish embassies in 16 of its overseas locations. In six of its remaining 13 overseas locations, it is co-located with one or other of the remaining State agencies. We seek to achieve co-location and moving towards a form of Ireland House arrangement. As the Deputy is probably aware, the ambassador in each country chairs a cross-agency group to ensure an integrated approach is taken by the Irish presence in the relevant market. This means Bord Bia, Tourism Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and so forth operate as an integrated team under the ambassador. This approach has proved to be a successful instrument, even in cases where there is no physical co-location.