Mr. Michael McLoughlin:

I will deal with the last point first. For many years, the IDA has successfully targeted international companies and brought them into Ireland and helped them establish operations here. The idea of our programme is to leverage off the expertise and capabilities that exist in the IDA and to try to bring new incremental opportunities through. As Mr. Clune mentioned earlier, there are many leading companies in the world, a number of which have substantial operations here. However, there are many thousands of SMEs and emerging sector companies and emerging country companies coming up.

To be fair to the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, they cannot be everywhere, but Irish people are inclined to turn up everywhere, from Peru to China, to Australia, to Russia and further. What we are trying to do is to leverage off who these people are, where they are and their affection towards Ireland.

As they come across opportunities relating to companies that are growing, they plant the idea that as they come to Europe or expand in Europe, they could do so in Ireland. Our programme is over and above what IDA Ireland does. IDA Ireland's target and approach is, by and large, direct to companies. We have been recognised by the fDi Intelligencemagazine, which is owned by the FT Group. We were recognised at the global IPA innovation awards as identifying and creating a new channel into markets. What we have done, potentially, is create a new channel for the State in the world of foreign direct investment and that has been recognised now in the industry. That is where it sits.

Is it something that would have been done naturally in IDA Ireland or Enterprise Ireland? I am unsure, given the nature of the model. We have a strong customer interaction. It is almost the retail end, which is the connector side. It is probably not something those organisations would have been as au faitwith in that sense. It was a totally new programme. It has never been done before not only in Ireland but anywhere on the globe. There was a strong element of experimentation, especially during the first year. I hope that addresses that issue.

"No" is the straight answer to the question on profitability. We are pre-revenue at the moment. We receive a payment up to two years after what are deemed to be sustainable jobs have been created. The payment comes from the State through IDA Ireland to ConnectIreland. It is based on employment that is in place 12 months and 24 months after the job has been created. From that perspective, we are not even two years in operation. The first year of operations was based on trying to identify connectors who can host introductions to companies. That is what we have stuck to and, I believe, that is what we have done successfully. This year we have been looking at more conversions.

We have approved 12 companies to date this year. Reference was made to some that were announced. Not every company has made an announcement. It is the company's right not to make an announcement and we have to honour that process. We can inform the committee of the number of overall jobs approved but we cannot say who they are. From a profitability perspective, we are pre-revenue and we are a long way off. To be fair to Mr. Clune, who is behind this financially, this is about giving back to Ireland as well. This is not a traditional business model by any means.

The final issue is related and is based on employment created. Our companies were all included in most recent Forfás employment survey. They have put in returns. We expect approximately 35% to 40% of the jobs announced are in place at the moment. There are other projects, including The Magni Group, which currently has indirect employment. The opening date for the Magni facility in Portarlington, with 50 people on board, is September next year. It is going through an approval and build process. That operation will be in place. The group has a capital investment of €15 million. There are other companies such as Mafic going through. That company now has in excess of 30 employees. Flagship Management has five people in Kinvara, County Galway. There are different companies at different stages, depending on when they were announced. The company that was approved this week will have eight people by the end of the year and is in the process of making the offers. Different companies are at different stages.

Reference was made, rightly, to our target, which is 5,000 jobs over a five-year period. Within that, our target is to have 1,000 jobs approved and as many as possible in place by March next year. We are currently working with several projects in terms of conversions. They range from eight jobs upwards. The majority of the projects are in the region of 20 to 30 jobs but we have some projects in excess of 100. The bigger projects will help us get to the larger number of 1,000.