Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will address Deputy Collins's other question. The Deputy asked whether Enterprise Ireland and the IDA would be disadvantaged by these savings and, especially in light of Brexit, they will not be disadvantaged. The committee needs to appreciate the multi-annual nature of the enterprise and innovation grants provided through the Department. Typically the grants of the enterprise agencies span three, five, seven and eight-year periods. Our enterprise and innovation policies are about sustaining sustainable economic growth and societal development. The consequences of securing Cabinet approval for this Supplementary Estimate, which, let us remind ourselves, includes an overall package of €60 million in capital investment, means that the Department's total capital expenditure by year end will be €548 million. That is the largest ever productive capital investment made through the Department in a single year. However, that €548 million will be surpassed by a total capital spend next year of €555 million, which I secured in budget 2017. We expect to be before the committee again in February to talk to it about the 2017 Estimates. We will elaborate further on the 2017 plans then. In 2016 and 2017, the level of Exchequer capital funding through the likes of Enterprise Ireland, the IDA, SFI and the LEOs will be about €1.1 billion, which will support Irish-based enterprise and innovation. It will also be supplemented by a significant amount of agencies' own resource income, ORI. Typically it is around €100 million per annum. The Exchequer capital and agency ORI combined means that, through the Department, the Government is investing in excess of €1.3 billion over the two years. This is to ensure we can continue to support the jobs and innovation agendas proactively and be responsive to the various global issues like Brexit, the changing US administration and all that might arise from it. We are pretty well resourced for this year and for next year.