Ms Joanna Murphy:

I will start from the top. I thank Senator Naughton for those pertinent questions. She has managed to hit the nail on the head with many of them. Reference was made to expansion of the programme and our relationship with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We are extensively supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the immigrant support programme. We have an intimate relationship with the Department and we are invited regularly, through the ambassador network, to present at various events globally which have a relevance and pertinence to investors coming to Ireland. We are delighted to be working with the Department and it has been greatly supportive of us.

The question of what the committee can do was raised as was the story of Kinvara. An interesting man works in that company, which is called Flagship Management. His name is Cathal McInerney. He lost his job in the construction industry during the downturn. He ended up getting a boat to England. Somehow he ended up in Shanghai and somehow he married an Asian lady and had a family there. He thought he would never see Kinvara again and he got on with it. One night his father called him and told him there was a job at home in his sector, information and communications technology, unbelievably.

That gentleman, Cathal McInerney, is our best ambassador because he speaks about how it is for him to be back in his parish, in Kinvara, working for a company in his sector that he would not have known about had his father not told him it was available. The interesting point is that the company has set up in the sweetshop his grandmother owned. It is a quite remarkable, global story.

Senator Naughton’s suggestion about the airlines is a very good one. In ConnectIreland we find that if we tell people what we are doing, they will give us a better idea. That is a better idea. Of course we should expand into other airlines. We have not done that but will embark on that. I thank the Senator for that feedback.

To explain where we fit in, ConnectIreland brings to the IDA and Údarás na Gaeltachta that which they do not already know. In the life of this initiative 2,500 companies have been introduced to us. Before we do a presentation to a company, the first thing we do is ask IDA Ireland if it has been in active dialogue with the company. In 75% of cases it has not been. It is new. We start the process with the IDA of working through those leads. Of those 75% we can actively engage with 50%. Almost 10% of those leads have converted. We are in active dialogue with the remaining 40% which remain interested, and we believe we will convert them at a high rate over the coming weeks and months.