Ms Joanna Murphy:

The Deputy's point about what it was like to be an emigrant in Australia reminded me of the type of benevolence of which ConnectIreland has been the recipient. Every year at the All Ireland Hurling and Football Championship finals, the GAA affords us an opportunity to reach the four corners of the world with a video message about getting involved in ConnectIreland. The GAA became so heavily involved because it is a community benefactor and ConnectIreland is, ultimately, a community organisation, supported by city and county councils across Ireland.

It was also because it had difficulty in fielding football teams at that time and it wanted to reach out to young men and women from Ireland across the world to tell them they could do something too. One of our ambassadors is Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, who members will be well aware of as he is almost a president of Ireland. He is more than 90 years of age now and he never travels outside of the country without a box of ConnectIreland brochures under his arm. He insists on it because he wants to do something useful. He wants to talk about job creation and the value of our diaspora. We receive that type of contact and support from a mind-numbing number of people. I recognise what the Deputy described as it is what we feel and see every day in ConnectIreland.

We welcome the review but we were hoping to be part of the review and that perhaps somebody might ask us what we thought was good about the programme after operating it exclusively from when it began to where it is now. Certainly, we believe there are areas that can be improved but we would also like to celebrate the success of the initiative.

The Deputy also asked about the roll-over and key performance indicators. There was no key performance indicator, as such. We had what we have now, which is monthly operational meetings. We are delighted and proud that we have another three announcements today. They involve three companies, two of which are outside of Dublin, and 35 jobs. They are small, sustainable and valuable jobs for Ireland. That is, and has been, our success.