Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The monitoring is centralised in the Department of the Taoiseach, which oversees every Department. The merit of this lies in the fact that it tries to span the whole area. Both I and the Ministers of State travel continually to the regions to hold meetings on the Action Plan for Jobs in order to get regional feedback. We are open each year to public contribution and ideas from anyone in any part of the country. As the Deputy knows, this year I am developing, for the first time, a regional enterprise strategy framework to try to bring the different pieces together, the EI piece, the IDA piece, the LEO piece and the wider stakeholders who can help to make this a success. As I indicated earlier, this framework will be rolled out this year, starting in just a couple of regions.

What we are trying to do in regard to performance indicators is to develop indicators that are SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. We will look at the issue from the birth of businesses right through development. It will not be just about employment. We will look at a wider range to see how we are doing at start-up level, how we are doing at scaling companies and so on. That is the approach we seek to adopt. We are working on that and would welcome the committee's participation.

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