Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise to the Minister for not being here earlier, but I have read his statement. I had a Topical Issue debate this morning and that delayed me. I will not rehearse my and my party's view on the right to be turned down when making a remote working request, which is what some people have nicknamed the legislation. I welcome that the Minister is open to amendments to it and that he acknowledges the need for it to be strengthened. We are happy to work with the Department and the committee to ensure that the legislation is made fit for purpose, if it can be, and I look forward to that engagement.

With reference to the matter at hand, we had representatives of IDA Ireland before the committee last week and we will have representatives of Enterprise Ireland before the committee in the coming weeks. The data in the briefing document regarding the employment figures for companies supported by IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland indicate a robustness in respect of employment and when one looks at the jobs, enterprise and development programme figures from page 77 onwards the expectation looks positive. However, when one looks at the metrics for the LEOs the Department does not appear to have as ambitious an outlook for this group.

It states that the 2022 output target is 1,800 new jobs created for LEO client companies. Given the funding for LEOs is significantly below that of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, is there a case to be made that with greater investment and support for the talents that exist in LEOs that they could help to deliver greater employment in conjunction with the SMEs and microbusinesses that they work with?