Mr. Mark Christal:

I absolutely agree with the point made about the collaboration needed. With this initiative, there must be collaboration between the public sector organisations, including the local authorities, Enterprise Ireland, the local enterprise offices, IDA Ireland and chambers of commerce. That is really important. Whatever we do, we must ensure we engage and develop approaches that will be meaningful from the perspective of a small and medium enterprise. The typical Enterprise Ireland client has 20 or 30 people who are time-limited. Companies have faced many challenges. Whatever systems or policies we put in place need to be attractive and practical from their perspective.

The issue of skills has been mentioned by a number of people. It is something on which we are very focused. We have a programme, Spotlight on Skills, aimed at helping our clients to identify their skill needs and put them on a path towards engaging with training and education providers to get a response in meeting those skill needs. We have approximately 160 companies throughout the country that have engaged in the programme and are working with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to facilitate these companies in engaging with education and training providers. They have also engaged with private providers to procure responses. A number of points mentioned could be built on.