Ms Siobhán Finn:

There are a number of reasons. Take the structure of the four streams that exist under the scheme. The scheme was designed by individuals who are not engaged with centres and hubs on a day-to-day basis. The Deputy will be familiar with some really successful hubs across Galway and the wider west.

The reality of what is expected of these individuals is that success is measured by the number of companies they turn out and their success. However, little attention is paid to the model that sits behind this ambition, which involves running a successful enterprise centre and hub; meeting the overheads, salaries and operational costs and doing so with a very lean team; and continuing to deliver on the Government's ambition to create HPSUs and successful small and medium-sized indigenous businesses in regions across Ireland. There was a gap of well over two years, if not longer, between the last regional enterprise development fund and this new smart regions enterprise innovation fund. During that time we lost 15 to 20 of our very experienced staff from across the sector. That may seem like a small number but we only have 500 people employed as staff running enterprise centres and hubs around the country. Those 500 people support companies that employ 18,000 full-time individuals, so there is a complete disconnect between the reality of what is required on the ground and the structure of the decisions and the funding streams to meet Government ambition. There is no understanding of what is practical, doable and feasible on the ground. That ranges from the structures of match funding and the clawback required under stream 1 for capital investments. Within stream 2 we are looking at match funding clustering consortiums of 50% that comes from industry, but there is no clear definition of what industry looks like in the context of making an application for this fund. I could sit here all day and talk about the challenges.