Mr. John Whelan:

They are concerned that the requirement with regard to 10% of the portfolio makes it very difficult for them to manage. Based on the extent of dealings a client has with a bank, it is restricted to offering this 10%. Bearing in mind that it is geared to help 1,600 companies with €150 million each year for three years, it should go out in tranches of €250,000 to each company. However, having a maximum of 10% of the loan portfolio in it makes it very difficult for the banks to administer in a meaningful way, which is their biggest concern.

At least if we get it out, we can prove to the Government that it is not working. It has agreed to review it after year one. The longer the delay, the further we are away from that. We would be fairly confident it will not achieve what is expected of it without further adjustments, but it needs to be made operational.

Deputy Calleary also asked whether there had been a drop-off in the number of trade missions since the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade took over responsibility for trade. It was a very positive move which is working extremely well and has re-energised the embassies abroad. We feel we do not have enough people in the embassies and would like to see more. We made a submission to Government on a trade strategy for Africa. At the moment 1% of our trade comes from Africa but 17% of our embassy structure is there. Africa is also growing very rapidly and there is great potential. We need to ensure that every embassy takes at least one member of staff on board with a trade brief. While we have done great work there on the aid front, most of the other countries which are competing with us have come to the conclusion that Africa is moving rapidly and they are moving in on the trade front. We need to do likewise and utilise the strength of our embassies to help us to do that. On food and drink, the food side is doing particularly well there. However, there are opportunities for considerably more food companies there. Glanbia is expanding very well as is the Irish Dairy Board, but a number of other food companies could go in under the banners and become involved.

On the trade mission front, those involved have upped their game considerably and have been getting out. Our concern is that other countries are also getting out. We need to benchmark ourselves against, for instance, how often UK Ministers are getting abroad. We see them out often more frequently in various markets and it requires a continued push. With the EU Presidency in the first six months of next year, we are getting signals that the number of trade missions will need to be reduced as a consequence. We make the point that Ministers get an extra halo when travelling abroad during the time when they have the EU wrap around them. I hope they will buy into that.

Deputy Tóibín spoke about Leader, the county enterprise boards, EI and the jobs strategy. There was a wide-ranging announcement under the jobs strategy 2012 with more than 100 different initiatives. While most of them were pretty good, many of them need to be acted on because we are being asked for job strategies for 2013. At the moment our position is that we should implement those in the 2012 strategy and we could do a considerable amount with them. For example, the creation of a 400 ha salmon farm off the Aran Islands was announced. Our salmon exports generally have dipped over the past decade - we now export approximately 10,000 tonnes of salmon. That one salmon farm on the Aran Islands would create 400 jobs approximately, producing 10,000 tonnes and doubling our exports of salmon. We need to benchmark ourselves. Last year Scotland exported some 200,000 tonnes of smoked salmon. The Scandinavian countries export approximately 1 billion tonnes of salmon. If one ramps up the numbers, with the creation of 400 jobs for each 10,000 tonnes of smoked salmon, the opportunities in the sector are enormous. We need to build on some of the strategies that were announced and push them as hard as possible. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney advised us that they are waiting for a foreshore licence and planning permission. He is pushing this hard but, as in the case of the credit guarantee scheme, it is taking far too long to get it started. If that salmon farm is tested and it is found to work, many more will follow.

Our strategy must be to take the jobs strategy and put as much effort as we possibly can behind it. In that regard it needs the members and their colleagues to push hard to try to get them delivered on.

In response to Deputy Tóibín, we have had severe difficulties with the announcement of the restructuring plan for the county enterprise boards restructuring plan, the body charged with supporting companies that employ fewer than ten people. The CEBs are in a no-man's land as they are scheduled to be closed down and subsumed into the county council structures. Many of the CEBs no longer have a chief executive, as they left under various schemes and nobody replaced them. The CEBs did good work for many years and could continue to do so for companies that employ fewer than ten people. We do not understand the reason for the restructuring. The boards acted as a springboard for exporters at the early stage who could then be handed on to Enterprise Ireland or Board Bia. That needs to be speedily addressed.

The Leader programme tends to operate separately and is very good at community level. I have seen it work very well at a number of levels in the community. It tends to be a much more community orientated programme.

The currency was mentioned, drawing a comparison between the value of the euro and the deutsche mark. We have been doing reasonably well from our exports. The German economy has been exporting at twice our levels by and large. They are gaining even more than we have gained. For them the euro and eurozone operates very well. Should Ireland pull out of our link to the euro, the question then arises as to whether to link to sterling or the US dollar. We could not float as the punt again as that would be unsustainable in the current bond market. The eurozone is a better place for the average exporter than to be linked to sterling or the US dollar. We regularly survey exporters and 90% would prefer to stay in the eurozone.