Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

The issue of competition for investment and jobs is nonsense. That this island would have a plethora of enterprise organisations such as Enterprise Ireland, InterTradeIreland and Invest NI does not make sense. We also have the Northern Ireland Bureau and embassies across the planet, all of which are duplicating work. While there has been some improvements in this area, we have not achieved very much since InterTradeIreland was established in 1998, which is almost 20 years ago. For example, in California, the eighth the largest economy in the world, we have seven IDA staff, five Enterprise Ireland staff and nine Invest Northern Ireland staff. Why the duplication there? In China, a massive emerging market, we have 15 IDA and Enterprise Ireland staff and three INI staff. These organisations are competing with each other to get investment to Ireland. Given the economic climate is this duplication making sense or is it time for the Government parties to step outside the ideological box in this regard and try to understand that one all Ireland investment and enterprise development agency is long overdue?

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