David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This issue is not about ConnectIreland and the information we sought had nothing to do with ConnectIreland. The questions I asked were on the annual employment survey and how it arrived at the figures for how many IDA Ireland sponsored jobs had been created. In its response, it gives a very detailed breakdown of the verification process used by IDA Ireland in respect of grants. That is fine. I have no difficulty with that but it does not use the same verification process in terms of the annual employment survey.

They do not, for example, do site visits, payroll reports or company bank statements. ConnectIreland has to do all of that in terms of verifying what jobs were created. That is where the comparison comes from. The annual employment survey is quite weak and is a self-assessment system. Bear in mind that this is the key report we use as a benchmark for the performance of IDA Ireland. Ultimately, it is about how many IDA Ireland sponsored jobs are created each year. If it is a simple self-assessment process and it is not really properly back up or assessed then I have a difficulty with it. I believe this is quite serious and I would like to come back to it at some point. I would want to put questions to IDA Ireland in this regard. I am not satisfied with it and every response the committee gets back from them reaffirms my concerns that the survey is quite weak in process terms. It is this committee's role to probe the process. We should come back to this.