Mr. Terry Clune:

As to why it was set up, the Taoiseach in 2011 was seeking ideas as to how we might attract more jobs into the country. I participated in a business talk in Kilkenny, where I live, and said to those present that we should use our contacts around the world. A lady stood up to say she was a distant relative, going back 120 years, of the Coca-Cola family, who had left Callan, County Kilkenny, and went on to be one of the founding families of Coke. She still has a distant connection she has never utilised. She also said to us that within three of miles of where she lives, in Windgap in rural Kilkenny, lived the man who designed the White House, and within six miles of where he in turn lived, the grandfather of Walt Disney lived. This elderly lady told us of her connections and the connections of those connections in this tiny region of rural Kilkenny, and it just struck me that we really should utilise these connections.

There has been much talk of the diaspora for several years. I proposed my idea to the Taoiseach and he really liked the concept. I also proposed that I would finance it at the start and get it up and running and that we would be paid back over time as we became successful. I proposed that it would run as a break-even initiative, which is ultimately the way it is materialising now. We now have a huge network of educated connectors who know about the project, people all around the world who are eyes and ears for the country and are keeping their eyes and ears open. If they hear about companies that are expanding, they let us know. We receive huge numbers of leads every day. Not all of them convert or turn into jobs for Ireland, but the State does not have to pay in that case. The State simply pays us a small amount, two and a half times less than the cost of the IDA, for each job we get into the country. It is a success-only model, so I see absolutely no national advantage in shutting it down. To answer the Senator's question, I set it up as a patriotic initiative and thought I could get it done. We had not only a fantastic team led by Ms Murphy, but also a massively loyal network of connectors around the world that we have now built who help the country for nothing. We give them an opportunity to help the country, and it is as simple as that.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. It works. There are challenges with it so we would like very much to be involved with a review rather than it being this contract whereby we are a direct contractor to IDA Ireland. It should be a public-private structure whereby one can use the best of the private sector and the innovation of entrepreneurs with the structure and infrastructure of the State organisation to get a job done. Ultimately, that is what we are doing but there is a lot of opportunity to fix the structure and make it much more successful into the future.

What we would really like is that, as one of the Deputies suggested earlier, rather than closing it down on Sunday, the Department would take it over as a short-term measure and operate it or oversee it until the review is conducted and completed. Based on the outcome of the review, either the Department would continue running it, IDA Ireland would run it or Enterprise Ireland would do so. However, somebody would run it or else the Department would deduce at the end that this does not make sense. Closing it down and then carrying out a review does not make sense and is not in the national interest.