Mr. Simon McKeever:

Briefly, there were two questions on Enterprise Ireland, EI, and our national export hub. In terms of whether Enterprise Ireland have more resources, there are two sides to that. We need more resources in our external facing piece. There are already a number of resources there. We are not very well co-ordinated across our embassies. In terms of the EI people, IDA Ireland and Bord Bia, that starts with a collective approach here in Ireland where there may be a governing board sitting over all of those agencies. There are more resources and by putting them together we would get more out of them.

As Ms Callan said, EI does not cover every company in the country. One of the reasons the Irish Exporters Association exists is because we provide them with a good deal of support. Do they need more resources? They could get the skill set right. Another question is whether they need expensive internal resources or could that be farmed out.

In terms of our national export hub, we would welcome further discussion on that. We use the funding to employ people to be able to help small businesses in the main. It is our small business proposition. Next year, we will have two very large events in different parts of the country and we will then start working with companies in a very hands-on fashion to teach them how to export. Enterprise Ireland has chosen not to be involved in that programme with us but the Department of Foreign Affairs is involved in it with us. The local enterprise offices, LEOs, come in and out of it. In fact, we are developing a piece for the LEOs and we will be launching something with them. We would welcome further engagement with Government on that.