Chairman:

Again, I welcome the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Fitzgerald, the Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, and the officials to this part of the meeting. I thank the Department for the comprehensive briefing it provided which was circulated to members together with a briefing document prepared by the committee's secretariat. The committee has agreed to proceed programme by programme and will initially focus on specific subheads before asking questions relating to the remainder of the programme. We will start with programme A, jobs and enterprise development on page 7 of the committee secretariat's briefing. We will provide copies of the briefing if members do not have it before them. I invite the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation to make a short statement giving a high level overview of this programme.