Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The 50% target applied to the previous five year plan and it was very clear it had not been realised. To be fair to the IDA, there had been a progressive improvement in the proportion of projects that were won outside Dublin and Cork, as shown in the table. From 30% in 2013, it increased to 37% in 2014. I recall that it was lower than 30% in 2012. In the new approach, the IDA took a different view and said it would strengthen each individual region in terms of the regional management structure and the flow of information between the regions and their IDA offices overseas, which it has strengthened with additional staff and liaison, and that it would set a new target of a 30% to 40% increase in the projects won. It developed a different strategy with more tools in the locker. To complement this, we devised the regional enterprise strategy, to try to get more of the local players involved and make a more coherent offer in terms of winning additional FDI.

The target going through will be the projects won in the years ahead rather than the 50% target outside Cork. Each of the regions will be individually examined. This is a more stretched target in many ways and is also more relevant, in that each region can assess how it is doing. There is a monitoring committee within each region, with both private and public sector participation, which will seek to review how we are doing.

The earlier call-down is an indicator of the health of projects, the quicker ramp-up of project and, perhaps, the sectoral mix whereby we will get a different profile of projects that will have a quicker drawdown on cash. Overall, there is a higher percentage drawdown than anticipated. The provision we make in 2015 is a weighted average of approvals over a number of years with a certain assumed drawdown. The profile has scrunched up, and this is the cause. To some degree, bringing it forward may ease pressures later. With the healthy pipeline, we are considering an increase in the provision for 2016 and are continuing to talk to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform about the possibilities of pressure arising there.

Regarding Údarás na Gaeltachta, we have very good relations among the family of agencies. One of my goals in the regional enterprise strategy is to break down the silos that exist between Departments and agencies, and get a catalyst going at regional level to see projects that are of value being progressed by joint effort. While we do not have a capital allocation goal for Údarás na Gaeltachta, we would support projects it is developing, where possible, and the IDA sometimes assists with specific project grants.

The IDA has not given any particular signal that planning laws, challenges or delays, as the Deputy said, are a problem. I think he knows there are concerns in his constituency about the provision of a particular road. IDA and local authority officials are working on that. Overall, one of the areas where Ireland has been weak in terms of competitiveness evaluations has been the speed of planning permits and construction permissions. It is an area that deserves attention as we move on. It is one of the areas that comes up each year when we examine where we stand against our competitors. It is certainly something I will seek to address through this closer alliance with local authorities to work towards shared objectives. It is to be hoped that will help to negotiate some of these planning delays more quickly. That is part of the purpose.

The PRTLI is essentially about capital equipment and beefing up the capital capacity of the institutes of education. The HEA administers that on our behalf. In terms of evaluation, it is difficult to turn investment in a particular piece of equipment into a job profile, but we work hard on that. Within Enterprise Ireland, we have a group called Knowledge Transfer Ireland which is working to establish how our assets, including our intellectual property and licences, can be more quickly transferred into business and on into employment. They are doing an evaluation of how well we do it. They will provide a framework within which we can look at the performance of different institutes of education and one hopes that will provide us with policy insight into how we can sweat the assets more effectively. As the committee knows, Science Foundation Ireland has become more discerning in its allocation of science money where it must not only have excellent science but come through a second gateway which is potential impact on areas where we have a competitive advantage and the ability to win joint funding from the private sector. We have more intermediate steps as to the effectiveness of these institutions rather than being able to say how much we put in and the job impact at the other end of the funnel.