Mr. Tom Hayes:

There is no point in underestimating the significant degree of change arising out of the dissolution of the county and city enterprise boards and the transfer of their functions to local authorities. There is no question about the extent of the change involved. Over time, however, I am confident it will prove to be right way to go in that it will provide local authorities with the opportunity to support and encourage local businesses, be enterprise-focused and take on enterprise as a key development in their own local areas. As I said, I do not underestimate the challenges that exist. However, we certainly have worked very closely with the local authorities, the County and City Management Association, the Local Government Management Agency and with the team in the Department to ensure that the best possible supports are being provided to staff. It is an absolutely fundamental tenet of what we are doing to ensure the enterprise culture remains within the local enterprise offices. That is essential.

As I mentioned earlier in reply to Deputy Calleary, our training programmes are all geared to ensure the staff who are moving from the local authorities - it is a major change for them as well - are up to speed with what enterprise requires, how to read business propositions, understand business requirements and so on. All of that is very different from what they did when they were working in the local authority and a lot of effort has been put into meeting that challenge. I am not saying there are no longer any challenges or that there are no parts of the country where work remains to be done. However, the training and development initiative is a three-year programme and we are only halfway through it. It covers all the main business functions to ensure there is a unified and standardised approach to supporting enterprise at a local level.