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

I thank the Deputy for his acknowledgement of the progress being made. Some exciting announcements have been made, particularly on the Enterprise Ireland side. One can genuinely say we have Mittelstand companies, as they would be described in Germany, such as the likes of Combilift and Ribworld. There are several that are now proving their capacity to be global players and they have the ambition to match.

I see no problem or threat in Northern Ireland having its own capacity to set corporate tax rates.

One is competing daily with other European destinations or Singapore. The competition for foreign direct investment is fierce. Anything that is good for the island of Ireland's economy is really good for all of us. I have no concerns on that front. We compete all the time and we will continue to compete. Obviously what might happen in the United Kingdom referendum in 2017 is an issue on which one will comment with a certain level of caution. Other people are making decisions about their future. In the natural course of such things, it throws up threats and opportunities. I think the balance of advantage for Ireland as a country is to see Britain remain in the European Union. Britain is our main trading partner, but of course we do not control the outcome of the referendum and we have to look at how we minimise the threats and take the opportunities that come as a result of such decisions. While there is very active assessment of this, we will not try to influence the decisions of the British. We work with the UK all the time. We have a very close relationship and clearly that relationship will remain.

The local enterprise offices, LEOs were established with both the existing complement of staff from the county enterprise boards and an incoming complement of staff from the local authorities. It was bringing in the local authority business units, so there is no LEO operating with a lower staff complement than it had in the beginning. We are conducting a review of resources and clearly we will be looking at the adequacy of the support in all cases. We have specific permission also to have a graduate programme so we will be introducing graduates not to replace the core strength of the existing LEOs but to improve customer delivery and service and so on. Obviously we are looking at this very closely. There are four positions for head of enterprise currently being advertised in different areas by the Public Appointments Service. Some unevenness has been inherited from the existing structure but we are trying to ensure we deliver an even service, and as resources become available, we will strengthen services. We have specific opportunities to place graduates.