Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his questions. I will try to address all of them.

On regional development, 58% of IDA Ireland supported jobs are now outside Dublin. IDA Ireland has been very proactive in working in the different regions to identify opportunities. I have launched nine regional enterprise plans across the country and can assure the Deputy that one of my priorities is to put the focus on the regions. The nine regional enterprise plans have been very successful in encouraging collaboration and a ground-up approach. We have enterprise and use all of the agencies, including IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the local enterprise offices and the local authorities which, as we all know, play an important role in the economic development of their counties. They are all coming together with the education providers and the future skills fora in the nine regional enterprise plans. Together they are looking at the strengths of the regions and how to capitalise on them. They are examining clustering, where possible; identifying suitable initiatives or plans and what they need to do to build on the strengths of a region, as well as identifying weaknesses and addressing them. We have launched nine plans, each of which has its own strategic objectives tailor-made for the region. The regional Action Plan for Jobs has been very successful, but we need to refocus it. That is what the regional enterprise plans are about. They are about highlighting the benefits of investing in the regions and putting forward the different strengths of each region. It is about taking a bottom-up approach and seeing how we can create more jobs in the regions.

The Deputy mentioned the Border region and the midlands. That is why I have specifically focused in on the regions in the regional property programme. A new IDA Ireland factory will go up in Athlone and there is one identified for Sligo. The Deputy mentioned the south east. There is also one identified for Waterford. As the two already in Waterford are now full, IDA Ireland is building a third. There is certainly a focus on the areas where we need to increase employment, particularly in the Border region, where we need property.

The Deputy mentioned a particular site in Cork. I think he is right that there are some sites at which perhaps IDA Ireland needs to look to see what their future is. However, he should try to sell a local IDA Ireland site. For example, there was one in Monaghan where nothing had happened for 30 years. Now it is recognised and there are plans to build an advance facility. We do need to review the matter, but at the same time, when I was a representative on the local authority, we certainly did not want to see any IDA Ireland lands being disposed of. We always saw them as presenting an opportunity and exerted pressure on IDA Ireland to attract a facility. However, I take the Deputy's point. IDA Ireland does actively manage its property programme. It is more difficult in some areas, but it is important that it have sites available for potential investors. It has no interest in holding on to sites where there is no prospect of attracting foreign direct investment. As the Deputy said, it also needs sites to which to bring people because, more and more, its existing facilities are being filled. It needs a supply of new sites it can show investors.

The pipeline of new investments into the country continues to be very strong. I am just back from a trade mission to Australia and Singapore where there is great interest. We all know that IDA Ireland does a wonderful job internationally. Other countries ask us how we manage to attract so many top quality global companies to Ireland and the great job IDA Ireland does in that regard is recognised globally. There is certainly strong interest among companies that are looking to locate their European headquarters in Ireland. Of course, it is ultimately their decision where they go, but certainly the offer of locating in the regions was very much put to them, for example, that they have an office in Dublin and a second site in one of the regions. The advantages of locating in the regions were put to them. The Deputy knows that when we go on trade missions, we realise the wonderful job IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland do on our behalf in promoting Irish businesses abroad and attracting investment into Ireland.

Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, is certainly playing a key role in implementing the strategy Innovation 2020. It was given an additional €16 million in budget 2019, bringing its total budget up to €172 million. There has been a lot of investment in research centres. For example, another €10 million will go towards a new SFI centre for research training to address the need for skilled PhD and research master's holders. The programme will address a key action in Innovation 2020 to increase the enrolment and output of postgraduate researchers. A sum of €5 million will go towards the renewal of six world-class research centres. SFI research centres have generated over 600 research contracts between academic researchers, NMCs and SMEs, with committed industry co-funding of over €150 million and competitively won EU Horizon 2020 funding of over €170 million. Some €1 million will go towards SFI's strategic industry partnerships which fund compelling research opportunities on a flexible basis that are not otherwise served by other national funding programmes. SFI is doing a really good job in that space. We have also just allocated the first round of funding from the disruptive technologies fund, in which SFI has a huge interest and on which it is working very closely with industry. There was an SME involved in every single project funded under the programme, under which there is €500 million available. Just one third of successful projects have consortium partners located in Dublin alone; 18 of the successful projects involve enterprise partners based outside the capital. They are located countrywide in Limerick, Cork, Galway, Kildare, Monaghan, Waterford, Louth and Tipperary. The largest consortium involves 13 partners stretching from Dublin to Cork to Wicklow. We are learning from call one.

We are going to have a second call and we expect to make some changes. For example, these could be to the application form and the process. We can say with some certainty that projects will still need to focus on the themes identified in the research priority areas. We anticipate the second call will happen before the summer.

I take the Deputy's point on business access to funding. My Department supports ongoing key small and medium enterprise, SME, access to finance initiatives, including the credit guarantee scheme, the Brexit loan scheme, the future growth loan scheme I launched, and the micro-enterprise loan fund scheme. These are a range of schemes developed to provide finance to SMEs at low cost levels and at better terms and conditions than what was available on the market. A number of new initiatives have been progressed recently, as I noted. The future growth loan scheme launched today will make a fund of up to €300 million available for loans of between eight and ten years, and that is something for which the market is not currently catering, particularly for companies that want to invest in capital expenditure. This may be long-term funding for specific or bespoke plant and it can sometimes be difficult to access finance for that. I am satisfied the new scheme we launched today should cater for it.

There is also the Enterprise Ireland seed and venture capital scheme that will operate from 2019 to 2024, and there are new economic indicators included in this scheme. We conducted a review of microfinance in Ireland and we continue to support the work of Microfinance Ireland in helping Irish micro-enterprises to access the funds they need. We are working with our colleagues across the Government to secure alternative means of finance for SMEs, including in the areas of crowdfunding. As I mentioned, we have launched the future growth loan scheme and we are also finalising the development of a business finance advisory hub for SMEs in the second half of 2019. There are a number of different schemes where businesses can access funding, and if they do not get funding from banks or there is a reluctance to offer funding, those businesses can go to the Credit Review Office.

I met the heads of the pillar banks a number of weeks ago and I will meet them again next week. I raise with them continually the need to support businesses, especially in the face of Brexit. There may be working capital facilities or cashflow problems, and I have impressed upon those banks the need to be willing to take that walk with businesses as they may face into more challenging times.