Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 12 February 2015
Public Accounts Committee
2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
IDA Ireland - Financial Statement 2013
Enterprise Ireland - Financial Statement 2013
10:00 am
Ms Julie Sinnamon:
I will just put into context why we are in venture capital at all, which is important. In the early 1990s, Forbairt, which subsequently became Enterprise Ireland, started investing in venture capital. The purpose of investments in venture capital was to provide an ecosystem and a funding mechanism to support young, innovative companies. There was no functioning venture capital sector in Ireland at that stage. We have gone through a number of phases of investment in venture capital. Over the 1999-2013 period, we have disposed of those investments. If one takes the net position for the proceeds from our venture capital investment, we have got €93.7 million back into Enterprise Ireland. We have invested €55.1 million in those investments, which gives a profit overall on the total portfolio of venture capital based on disposals to date of €38.55 million.