Ms Julie Sinnamon:

I thank the Chairman and members for the invitation to attend. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Tom Hayes, Mr. Niall O'Donnellan and Mr. Kevin Sherry.

Enterprise Ireland helps companies throughout Ireland to start and scale, innovate and remain competitive on international markets now and into the future. The total spend of these companies in the Irish economy across payroll, goods and services purchased reached €22.9 billion in 2014. Enterprise Ireland-supported companies now directly employ 180,072 people, comprising 156,202 full-time and 23,870 part-time workers. In total, some 300,000 people are employed directly and indirectly. In January we reported that Enterprise Ireland's client companies created 19,705 new jobs, a strong start to the first year of a three-year strategy that will run to 2016. As a result, some 8,476 net new jobs were created - the highest net gain recorded in the history of the agency. In the past two years there have been record employment gains for Irish companies. All our key indicators are suggesting that employment growth is set to continue and there is a strong pipeline of new start-up companies and expansion projects coming through.

In 2015 Irish companies have continued to invest in their expansion and to create much needed jobs throughout the country. Among the investments announced in quarter 1 of this year were Icon plc and Britebill, which created 300 jobs in Dublin. More than 330 jobs were announced for Galway, Monaghan and Cavan, by client companies, Lifes2Good, Combilift and Lakeland. In Waterford, 100 jobs were announced by nearForm and a further 30 jobs were announced in the context of Lagan Brick's expansion in Cavan. In quarter 2 came the announcement of significant investment by Tricel in Kerry, supporting 100 jobs, East Coast Bakehouse in Drogheda, also supporting 100 jobs, with EPS in Cork adding 50 positions and Payback Loyalty adding 28 positions in Limerick. In addition, in quarter 3 Blue Insurance announced 100 jobs in Dublin and ABP Group announced the completion of a €50 million redevelopment of its facilities in County Tipperary. The latter has resulted in the creation of 152 new jobs to date, with expansion expected in the future. Boann Distillery in County Louth also announced the creation of 80 jobs. The customer services solution company, Eishtec, continues its rapid expansion and announced 200 jobs in its new centre in Clonmel. This month the Kerry Group opened its new global technology and innovation centre in Naas. The Kerry Group has invested €100 million in the establishment of the new technology and innovation centre which today accommodates 800 research, product commercialisation, business development and business support positions, and which will accommodate a further 100 positions by the end of 2016. In October, the Connacht Whiskey Distillery in Ballina, County Mayo, opened. The €10 million investment being made in this instance will generate 40 new jobs at the 27,000 sq. ft. distillery.

Since Enterprise Ireland last attended a meeting of the joint committee, we launched our annual report in which we announced our clients' export performance for 2014. Enterprise Ireland's client exports reached record levels, increasing by almost 10% to total €18.6 billion last year. Growth was recorded in exports to all international regions and across all sectors. The top five countries to which Ireland exports are the UK, US, France, Germany and the Netherlands. In total, exports to these countries accounted for just over €11 billion of export sales in 2014.

Exports to high-growth markets have continued to increase, with the figure for 2014 in this regard standing at €2.27 billion. Exports to Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region were up 42% and 25%, respectively. Responding to evolving growth opportunities, Enterprise Ireland opened new offices in Abu Dhabi, UAE and in Perth, Australia during the year.

The EI experience on the ground with companies winning business is also supported by the positive trends we are continuing to see from a number of independent indicators, including the monthly Investec Purchasing Managers Index which has showed continued growth in export orders for more than three years.

We continue to actively work on a team Ireland basis in overseas markets to drive the growth of our clients. The recent mission to China involved a total of 36 Irish companies and four cities were covered – Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Last week we ran a second trade mission to Ireland around the global sourcing initiative with IDA. The goal of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland global sourcing initiative is to deepen Irish company and multinational relationships. The mission involved 150 Irish companies and 85 multinational companies from across the country and was held in Dundalk, Waterford, Cork and Galway.

Starting and growing world class businesses is at the core of our strategy and a significant amount of our supports are geared towards preparing and helping entrepreneurs all over the country. In 2014, Enterprise Ireland invested in 183 new start-ups. This included 81 companies supported through the competitive start fund and 102 investments in new high-potential start-ups, HPSUs. The class of 2014 included 18 female entrepreneurs, ten overseas entrepreneurs and 11 research spinouts. Some 43 of the 183 start-ups supported were led by female entrepreneurs. Enterprise Ireland developed a series of female accelerator programmes in partnership with knowledge providers and launched our first peer-to-peer online networking platform for female-led companies.

To the end of September 2015, Enterprise Ireland has approved a total of 143 HPSU and CSF start-up projects. An important aspect of our performance is the strength of our ecosystem. The recently announced changes to modify the capital gains tax for entrepreneurs and the increase in company limits for EIIS investment are important steps in this regard.

Innovation is at the heart of all entrepreneurship, be it in high growth potential start-up companies or in established companies that are constantly improving their products and processes. With a view to helping companies with their innovation processes, Enterprise Ireland launched the first Innovation 4 Growth programme in partnership with the Irish Management Institute to meet the needs of ambitious and entrepreneurial Irish companies seeking to use innovation as a way to unlock opportunities in the marketplace.

In May 2014, Knowledge Transfer Ireland, KTI, was launched as the State’s central technology transfer office. The first resource of its kind in Europe, it is located in Enterprise Ireland and operated collaboratively by Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Universities Association. Among its many innovations, Knowledge Transfer Ireland provides a single repository for all technology opportunities available from the research system. Ireland’s technology centres are public private development centres at the interface between industry and academia. They facilitate the development and diffusion of new technology relevant to industry in Ireland. Two new technology centres were launched in partnership with IDA Ireland in 2014 - the new Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology Centre and the Governance Risk and Compliance Technology Centre, bringing the total number of centres to 15.

With two-thirds of EI's client companies outside of Dublin, regional development is a key element of Enterprise Ireland’s 2014-16 strategy.

Enterprise Ireland funds and drives the delivery of the 31 new local enterprise offices, LEOs, throughout the country, enhancing performance and ensuring best practice in the provision of funding, soft supports and advice to start-ups and existing businesses. This is a major initiative that EI is working on with the local authorities across the country and the objective is to enhance, year on year, the support available to the small businesses which are critical to job growth in the economy. The Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur, IBYE, initiative last year is an example of the momentum and spark which can be generated around celebrating our next generation of entrepreneurs.

Enterprise Ireland has just recently closed a call for expression of ideas from regions with proposals to inform the design of a formal open competitive funding call that will help to identify potential areas of enterprise and sectoral opportunities in regions and stimulate a future pipeline of potential strategic, sectorally-focused and regionally-based projects. This approach is in tandem with the development of regionally-focused action plans, with the mid west plan being launched yesterday.

The active support of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is vital to our ability to execute our strategy with Irish companies, particularly in the context of the Action Plan for Jobs. Similarly, the close collaboration of team Ireland is critical to supporting Enterprise Ireland in Ireland. Our key focus under our strategy to 2016 continues to be on driving entrepreneurship and start-ups, scaling Irish enterprise across all sectors and stages of growth, developing Ireland’s market-driven research and development capabilities and accelerating regional enterprise development. The targets set as part of that strategy represent the most ambitious for any three-year period for Enterprise Ireland, EI. Its corporate strategy to 2016 sets a target of growth in exports of €5 billion to more than €22 billion and for our clients to create 40,000 new jobs in the same period. What we see at this point as being a very strong 2015 will position EI and its clients to achieve these targets and continue the contribution to the growing momentum behind the Irish economy. I again thank members for the opportunity to brief the committee. My colleagues and I are happy to assist them with any questions they may have.