Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairperson and both the Minister and the Minister of State and their officials for their opening statements. On behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party, I am happy to agree and approve the proposal before us today. I have a number of questions and if the information is not to hand, it can be sent on afterwards.

In regard to the allocation of an additional €1 million to local enterprise offices, the Minister of State said that would support the creation of an additional 100 jobs, which is to be welcomed. I agree with the comments that local enterprise offices have had a very positive impact. Would it be possible to be furnished with a schedule of the entire list of projects which are to be funded and have been funded to date by the local enterprise offices?

Similarly in regard to the funding of the entire €60 million package, capital savings have arisen from IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and INTERREG. I have had a number of direct engagements with Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland in the past number of days and they have also appeared before the committee as part of the exercise on Brexit. In fairness to both organisations, they are doing their best to prepare the country and the client companies they support for the onset of Brexit. Apart from IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, what all the stakeholder groups, IBEC, the cross-Border representative groups, and the Small Firms Association are flagging is that Brexit will have a big impact on the first half of next year. In particular, we might see some SMEs relocating to a sterling based jurisdiction to equalise their cost base.

We are bracing ourselves for an impact next year. Will the fact of the capital savings make an impact on Enterprise Ireland and the IDA in terms of what they are trying to roll out? I appreciate they have been given additional resources in other parts of the budget to hire additional people, and that is welcome. They have indicated to us that they are still waiting for the official follow through in terms of how it will be divided up between the two organisations. Will the Minister or Minister of State give us a list of the LEOs and an oversight of what they think about whether Enterprise Ireland and the IDA will be hamstrung by virtue of these savings being used?