Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I am discussing with Enterprise Ireland how its programmes could be better adapted to help small and medium enterprises to develop export opportunities. The programme for Government includes proposals to have a better system to allow foreign buyers easily source Irish products and to help companies now operating principally in the home market to launch into exporting.

There are a number of programmes offered by Enterprise Ireland and some small companies would be in a position to avail of them. The focus of the agency is very much on high potential start-ups, of which 80 were developed last year. At a lower level the county and city enterprise boards support micro-enterprises that operate on a smaller scale but which would still include exporting opportunities.

Enterprise Ireland offers a number of supports to assist companies explore new export opportunities such as the "going global fund" and "Graduates 4 International Growth" which places graduates in small companies with the opportunity to expand. It has an international selling programme and developed a series of workshops entitled, "Excel at Export Selling", which helps companies to break into markets for the first time. It also offers its overseas office network which is located in 31 cities throughout the world and is developing business mentors to work with companies that have the capacity to export.

There is scope to build on the initiatives already in place in order that a more coherent programme is developed to have a wider range of companies targeting the export market at a time of depressed domestic demand.

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