Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chairman. I, too, am delighted to have an opportunity to discuss the details of the Department's 2016 Supplementary Estimate. As advised by the Minister, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, I propose to provide members of the committee with details of the local enterprise offices, LEOs, and the Microfinance Ireland elements of the Supplementary Estimate package, which are both supported under the jobs and enterprise development programme of the Department's Vote.

It is proposed to provide the local enterprise offices with an additional €1 million in capital funding in 2016, thereby bringing total capital investment in these offices to €19.5 million by year end. The additional capital investment will be directed at LEOs which have signalled that they have a pipeline of ready made projects for investment. The 14 LEOs concerned anticipate that these projects will support the creation of more than 100 jobs across the regions. Members of the committee will be well acquainted with the valuable work done by the local enterprise offices and the undertakings of their respective regions. The LEOs job performance since their establishment in 2014 has been remarkable. Their performance to date in 2016 indicates a continuation of this strong jobs creation momentum. The initial capital allocation of €18.5 million in 2016 allowed the LEOs to target and approve 900 projects for grant support with an associated full-time equivalent jobs total of 1,500 for the full year. At the end of October, more than €13 million had been approved in grant supports for 747 projects across the LEO network, with more than 1,400 jobs associated with these approvals. The additional €1 million in capital funding, being provided through the Supplementary Estimate package, will ensure that this impressive performance of job delivery across the regions can continue to be built on.

As regard Microfinance Ireland, the Supplementary Estimate package will allow for a further tranche of capital investment of €10 million into the microenterprise loan fund, as was envisaged under the Microenterprise Loan Fund Act 2012. The MFI fund is an important point of access to finance for many microenterprises. While it took some time to establish its brand, MFI has performed impressively well in the past 18 months to two years and so far it has helped to create or sustain 2,232 jobs across the regions. The €10 million being allocated through the Supplementary Estimate package is required now to support the ongoing work of the fund for a further five years. A further tranche of investment will be supplemented by additional financial support from the three main banks to the tune of €15 million in the next five years. The additional capital will be used to grow the level of the fund and ensure that MFI supports as many microenterprises as possible in terms of meeting their credit needs.

I hope the foregoing is of assistance to the members of the committee in regard to the rationale underlying the distribution of the proposed Supplementary Estimate package, particularly in so far as the local enterprise offices and Microfinance Ireland programmes are concerned. I have no doubt that the additional capital investment in these programmes will significantly enhance their capacity to continue the related important challenges of providing steady access to finance to our SME community and stimulating job creation across the regions.

I will be delighted to answer questions on those two areas.