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

We have not set a date specifically for the midlands plan. It is at the front of the queue. However, we want it to be the best it can be. We are therefore not rushing it out too quickly. We want to ensure whatever we have learnt is applied. The national talent drive is crucial. With the establishment of the education and training boards, a big priority for this year is the engagement of both them and the higher education institutes with enterprise, and to improve their interplay. The jury is out on how successful this is. We had the apprenticeship call. I hope it is successful. We need to see more engagement by enterprise with our education system. There probably have been faults on both sides. The education and training system may have got a little detached and employers probably could not afford to maintain traineeships and apprenticeships. This bridge needs to be rebuilt. Rebuilding this bridge is a big issue and the Minister of State, Deputy English, is committed to it.

On salesmanship, Mr. Fitzgerald tells me that we have a call out for Springboard courses to help firms sell internationally and to develop related skills. This would be in the second quarter of this year. I agree that we are great at marketing but not at selling. Ultimately, people have to sell our products. We have undervalued this skill. We may look to go back to the well again next year in this area because it is probably underdeveloped.

The Start-up Gathering, at this stage, is modelled somewhat on the tourism initiative, The Gathering, except it is sectorally driven. Five sectors and five cities have been identified as well as the sort of programmes to be run. The initiative has a call out. The KPI, key performance indicator, if one wishes to call it that will depend on the quality of the call. Eoin Costello is very enthusiastic and he has a very good committee. We have put some money in and he has good sponsors behind him. It is something we should be doing to get the message out, not only internationally but at home, that start-ups are a part of what we are. It should be part of our DNA. The initiative, which dovetails with our implementation of the enterprise strategy, will have an impact. We discussed at our ministerial board how we can get more recognition for this kind of Irish based initiative. We are looking at how we could do it and we will revert to the committee on that.

I wish to thank members of the committee for their support for actionplanforjobs.ie. At every meeting I attend, I am struck by the small percentage of people who really understand what is out there for them. Some 90% have said they do not fully understand what is available and they want more information, so we are trying to make that easier.

We want to make local enterprise offices more consistent and every one of them will have to submit a plan that will be vetted by the centre of excellence in Enterprise Ireland. They are under a service level agreement and we will be seeking a consistency of approach. We also want to promote some innovation so we will be having a competitive call. In that way, those with good ideas who are showing ambition and innovation in partnering in their county, will win more resources. We hope the combination of consistency plus some incentive to do new things will be a successful approach.

The Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, will shortly be making an announcement on the Leader programme which is an element of it, as are the rural enterprise development zones. Members of the committee should therefore direct such questions to her Department, rather than mine. I hope that what we are doing at regional level will dovetail with some of these initiatives, even though we have a stricter focus on building enterprise start-ups.