Jimmy Devins (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

The significant allocations in the Department's Estimates for 2009 will ensure that it continues to build on this strategy for the future.

Enterprise Ireland is responsible for supporting the development of Irish companies with ambitions to grow in world markets. Many of its client companies are small to medium in size. Enterprise Ireland recognises the varied challenges facing such companies in the context of the changing economic environment and partners with companies to address their needs in a holistic manner.

Attractive BES and seed capital schemes contribute to the provision of capital investment across a range of small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition to this, Enterprise Ireland is directly involved in venture capital initiatives also attracting investment for businesses. As a result of the Government's investment of €175 million channelled through Enterprise Ireland, seven new venture capital funds have raised over €500 million which is available to invest in the small and medium-sized enterprise sector.

Also funded through the Department, the 35 county and city enterprise boards provide support to small businesses or microenterprises with ten employees or fewer. County and city enterprise board funding will increase next year by almost €3 million, 9%, to €34.8 million, representing a further indication of the Government's commitment to supporting this sector of business.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

FÁS through its one step up programme is encouraging employees to increase their competency levels and promoting an ethos of lifelong learning in the workplace. Its key intervention in this regard is the competency development programme. It offers workers different types of training programmes directed at various skill levels across major economic sectors. These training programmes are available to employees of small and medium-sized enterprises. FÁS also has a number of other training programmes aimed at upskilling small and medium-sized enterprises, namely, Skillnets and the strategic alliance programme.

The Government has also made considerable progress on the implementation of the small business forum report's recommendations. This progress is reflected through a substantial package of financial measures and schemes introduced to assist the sector over the past two years, including fiscal measures in the 2007 and 2008 Finance Acts.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are central to our economic development and the range of measures and supports outlined above will continue to help the sector adapt to the current economic climate. These measures will be kept under review to ensure that they remain appropriate to the current circumstances.

In our Department, we will continue to remain in regular contact with the Department of Finance and will ensure that the issue of availability of credit to small and medium-sized enterprises is kept under constant review. We will also continue to consult with ISME and SFA on all issues impacting on small businesses and we welcome their continued valuable input.

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