Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Wallace made reference to small businesses. There are approximately 285,000 small business owners in this country employing approximately 700,000 people. I assure Deputy Wallace that my focus, as well as that of my Department and the Ministers of State, is to make sure that jobs are coming through. Believe it or not, we are embarking on a trade mission to Canada next week and more than 25 Irish companies will be taking part. The only reason they are going there is to sell their products and when they do, that will create jobs and that is what is important to us. It is vitally important that we go out and find markets because of Brexit. As Minister, I am fully in favour of going to Canada and finding whatever business we can.

I love listening to the Deputies talking about poor jobs, small jobs and badly paid jobs but these companies are paying well. There are Canadian companies in Ireland employing approximately 2,800 people. Those companies have invested almost €11 billion in Ireland. It is also interesting to look at Irish companies trading with Canadian companies. In 2015, foreign direct investment stocks in Canada from Ireland amounted to over €4 billion. There are over 400 Enterprise Ireland client companies doing business in Canada and please God, as a result of our trade mission next week, there will be more companies doing business with that country. There are 50 Irish companies with a local presence in Canada employing an estimated 6,000 people. These are Enterprise Ireland clients and they include Kingspan, Leading Edge, Keyword Studios and the Kerry Group. In 2015, Enterprise Ireland client companies exported more than €280 million worth of goods and services to the Canadian market. When I hear that, I know that it equals jobs. Export growth to Canada among Enterprise Ireland clients was greater than 7% in 2015 and was 14% in 2014.

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