Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Sinnamon and her team for the presentation. I commend them and everybody in Enterprise Ireland, particularly those who are abroad, on their performance over the past 12 months. It has been very strong and is the result of much hard work on the part of all Enterprise Ireland staff both here on the island and internationally. I have a couple of points. Ms Sinnamon mentioned the creation of 19,705 jobs last year with net jobs creation at 8,476, which would suggest just over 11,200 jobs were lost. Where is that occurring in terms of both sector and geography? Has Enterprise Ireland conducted an analysis of where those losses were to enable it to make alternative investments or to give other opportunities to those 11,000 or so people? What was the regional breakdown of the 19,705 jobs created? How many of those jobs were created in Dublin, Cork and Galway as opposed to elsewhere? As this is the first year of Enterprise Ireland's new marriage with the local enterprise offices, LEOs, how is that going? Is counselling needed or is it all hunky-dory with everyone getting on well? This is an entirely new area for Enterprise Ireland and while I am aware Mr. Tom Hayes is currently touring the country to talk to councils about it, what has Enterprise Ireland to learn from the experience in terms of proceeding and ensuring that relationship is working on the ground?

Ireland has some very good start-ups, some of which were listed by Ms Sinnamon, and I note there were 183 start-ups in 2014. Does Ireland face a challenge in scaling them up? Where will those 183 companies be in 2020, for example? What has been the record in respect of scaling up companies? While I cannot place my hands on it at present, a report has shown many Irish entrepreneurs had sold out of their companies at an early stage and that Ireland's record in scaling up is much poorer than that of our competitor or similar countries. The witnesses might reflect on that point.

On Enterprise Ireland's investment funds, I note the agency had some major successes in 2014 and again in 2015. It showed losses for 2014 of €16.8 million. What is the current loss figure and again, how does this compare with venture capital companies in general and how does it compare with enterprise agencies in our competitor countries?