Mr. Aidan Gough:

As everybody will be aware, InterTradeIreland is a body that has been supported by both Governments and it has its genesis in the Good Friday Agreement. Our regional legislative mandate is essentially to encourage cross-Border trade and business development.

Putting the firm at the centre is our practical and operational perspective of an island economy. It is one in which that firm can access whatever resources or opportunities it needs to grow, no matter where they reside on the island. We are an all-island body, not simply a cross-Border body. In that regard, we support businesses from every county across this island.

All our interventions are evidence based. Our all-island research will show that it is innovative and exporting companies that are more likely to create jobs. These, therefore, are the two areas in which we are helping businesses to avail of cross-Border opportunities. Our research also shows, for example, that 70% of exporters from this island took their first step in exporting by trading into the other jurisdiction on the island and, not surprisingly, our supports are focused on these two pillars of innovation and exports.

In trade, which is exports, we have programmes, such as Acumen, that help businesses develop the market through giving them the capabilities that they lack in the other jurisdiction. We also, under the trade banner, are helping businesses access the massive public procurement market on both sides of the island.

Among the innovation programmes, we have Fusion which links businesses to research institutes by putting a graduate into a company.

We are also helping both Governments to promote participation in what was the Seventh EU Framework Programme for Research, FP7, but is now Horizon 2020 and we are having a considerable degree of success in that regard. It makes sense for two member states which share a small island to co-operate.

Demand for our programmes is very high. In 2014, more than 470 inquiries were made for 64 places on a Fusion programme. In that same period, there were 430 inquiries for 112 places on the Acumen programme and the same applies for other programmes. We had only 81 places on our Elevate programme but 544 inquiries were made for it. Demand for these opportunities and programmes is very high.

Since our inception more than 15 years ago, we have demonstrated the value of economic co-operation across the island. More than 25,000 SMEs have benefited from our information and advice service, and 6,000 SMEs have been directly supported through our programmes. These companies have generated close to €1 billion worth of trade and business development value. We estimate that more than 3,000 jobs have been created over the past six years through our interventions but the figure is probably higher because in the early years, we were not measuring the number of jobs created. Our target audience is primarily the small indigenous-based companies. We have consistently over-achieved and over-delivered on our key performance indicators. There are some statistics in the documentation we provided. In the corporate planning period 2011 to 2013, we helped more than 220 small businesses take that on the export ladder and helped more than 200 small businesses take that on the innovation ladder through brokering opportunities on a cross-Border basis.

What we have achieved has been against a background of severe budgetary cuts, with our budget being cut every year since 2008. In fact, the budget has been cut by 30% since 2008. We recognise that the economic climate is volatile and yet we have continued to respond quickly and in a flexible manner to changing circumstances. We see emerging opportunities at which we are targeting our scarce resources in the increasing North-South applications to Horizon 2020. We are assisting SMEs on an all-island basis to access finance for growth. We are also exploiting public tendering opportunities, particularly for SMEs on an all-island basis. We are looking at current research on the potential to develop all-island clusters or sectoral ecosystems.

At a more strategic level, InterTradeIreland has also participated in a study for the OECD on collaborating across borders. This study provided lessons and made recommendations on good practice for cross-Border co-operation, including the need to devote more efforts to strategy development and policy intelligence when strategies and policies are being devised in the jurisdiction and not as an afterthought. It also recommended that we mainstream the cross-Border element in national and regional strategies and policy instruments or, at the very least, align programme rules so that businesses can easily participate on programmes on a cross-Border basis and also to make greater use of opportunities created by the Border and publicise success.