Mr. Martin Shanahan:

I thank the Deputy for his question. At the outset, I refute the comments which he has attributed to Deputy Collins in respect of our behaviour having been reprehensible. It has been in no way reprehensible. A legal dispute exists between ConnectIreland and IDA Ireland. ConnectIreland lodged a dispute notice with IDA Ireland in August 2016. I will not comment on any aspect of that dispute or on any individual companies because it is a legal dispute. However, I am happy to provide factual information. The Deputy asked some factual questions. I am happy to provide context.

The first thing to make clear, and to be fair to the Deputy he did so in his question, is that this is a programme operated by IDA Ireland for which ConnectIreland has the contract. It is contracted to ConnectIreland to deliver. Succeed in Ireland is an IDA Ireland programme. We have a vested interest in ensuring that it works. Our intent was to make it work. The situation is that ConnectIreland received a commercial contract in March 2012. It signed up to that contract and to some addenda. The contract expired on 26 March this year. IDA Ireland had extended the contract by one year to allow for an orderly wind-down. The target of the Succeed in Ireland programme over the period was 5,000 jobs. As of today, there are 544 jobs on the ground. By way of information, 302 of those jobs are in Dublin and a further 30 are in Cork. That means 61% of the jobs are based in Dublin and Cork. The remaining 212 are spread across a small number of counties. We have paid ConnectIreland more than €2 million in respect of those jobs - €2,270,000 to be precise. Under the contract, IDA Ireland has also paid a termination fee to ConnectIreland in respect of 398 jobs which have yet to be created. That termination payment was €1,539,500. If all of those 398 jobs are created, it will be great. If more than 398 are created, we will pay ConnectIreland further. If they are not delivered, we will recoup the moneys which we have paid to ConnectIreland. The contract provides for all of this.

IDA Ireland has, at all times, behaved professionally in respect of the operation of this contract. We have operated to both the spirit and the letter of the contract which we had in place, as we do in all our commercial dealings. I remind the committee that IDA Ireland operates a huge number of contracts and partnerships across the public and private sectors to deliver jobs.