Dr. Terry McGrail:

Our funding from Enterprise Ireland has been €6 million over five years.

We had to get matching funding of €6 million from industry and also matching funding from external sources. We have got well over €10 million from external sources, which is a recognition of the quality of the science and technology bit we are doing. On the industrial side, it is very difficult for many SMEs and micro SMEs to come up with €10,000. The size of the companies is the problem.

Our approach has been to nurture SMEs and help them grow so that the business of making composites is spread across Ireland. As already stated, a company in Mayo is now making boats and a company in Birr is making manhole covers. We are spreading the business out like that in order that rural communities can benefit from it. We do not have major international companies, like Intel, for which a few million euro is neither here nor there. For the sorts of companies with which we are working, it is a lot of money. We have been able to get the cash in from industry but we have not been able to generate this so-called economic value added, which is the multiplier on the investment we have had from Enterprise Ireland.