Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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59. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if his Department is considering the establishment of an Irish enterprise agency which would incorporate the individual local enterprise offices into one centrally-led national jobs agency to support and sustain small and medium-sized enterprises. [62096/22]

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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As a State, we have become very reliant on foreign direct investment. We have done an excellent job in attracting these companies of the last decades. Their taxation contributes dramatically to our finances, which is welcome. Enterprise Ireland also does great work in promoting Ireland's businesses and exports. In 2021, Enterprise Ireland-backed companies employed more than 200,000 people, and contributed billions of euro in exports and billions of euro to the economy as well. This is tremendous work but there is scope to scale up and support a focus on SMEs that are trading domestically. The setting up of an Irish enterprise agency would contribute greatly. That is the purpose of this question, which I have raised with the Minister of State previously.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue again. I will go back over the information we have. Following the dissolution of the county enterprise boards in 2014, an enhanced national assistance enterprise model was established to be delivered by local authorities on behalf of Enterprise Ireland through the local enterprise offices, LEOs. This structure has allowed the LEOs to effectively deliver national programmes that are aligned with enterprise policy and designed and overseen by the centre of excellence in Enterprise Ireland. Results from them have been immense over the past couple of years and during Covid we have certainly seen the benefits of the LEOs being able to reach a lot more companies than traditionally they would have reached. I spent the past few months visiting all the LEOs to engage with their work to see at first-hand the number of companies they were able to reach. That has been a success.

The programmes they operate promote entrepreneurship, foster start-ups, and help companies to prepare and start their export journey.

By being embedded in the local authorities, the LEOs have been able to contribute to local economic development and to our national policy objectives. The LEOs have delivered jobs growth year on year and assisted many high-potential indigenous enterprises to transition to Enterprise Ireland, to further develop their exporting ability and to increase their potential growth. The recent extension of the LEO mandate, based on the framework developed by Enterprise Ireland, will allow the LEOs to target new exporters, while providing direct grants to firms operating in the manufacturing and internationally traded services sectors with more than 10 employees. The LEOs also act as a first-stop shop for all businesses in signposting to Government assistance. They provide training, mentoring and consultancy programmes across a broad range of measures and some of these programmes are open to locally traded sectors.

The recently published White Paper on enterprise sets out an ambitious vision for Ireland's enterprise policy. This is to protect Ireland's strong economic position and respond to challenges and opportunities that have emerged as a result of: the pandemic; wider economic and geopolitical developments; digitalisation; and an increased urgency to decarbonise our industries. The White Paper also sets out that the LEOs will continue to enhance their advisory services for locally trading firms and productivity, particularly digitalisation and reducing the energy and carbon emissions. This will help enable Irish-based enterprise to succeed through our competitive advantage founded on sustainability, innovation and productivity, delivering rewarding jobs and livelihoods throughout the country. It is time we worked with the system that is there. It is doing a good job, and the White Paper is going to try to push that system as far as we can in order to reach those extra companies and drive the ambition we have for increased exports.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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There is no doubt that the 31 LEOs have done good work to date. In 2021, for instance, they contributed to the creation of 7,400 new jobs. They have supported small businesses through the provision of grants and assisted entrepreneurs in starting businesses. However, we have an opportunity to build on their knowledge and the knowledge of others to create an even more ambitious State body that is focused solely on indigenous business. An Irish enterprise agency could support established retailers on our main streets and help regenerate our town centres. This would support and enhance small businesses and help start-ups. Our reliance on multinational companies that are mostly based in urban areas has contributed to a growing regional imbalance in the economy. An Irish enterprise agency could help in addressing this imbalance. These SMEs, including coffee shops, small fashion stores or retail units, are often the engine of the domestic local economy. There needs to be an agency advocating for them and supporting them in growing the indigenous enterprise sector in a more focused and organised way. Such an agency could be the one-stop shop for both start-ups and established domestic businesses, providing advice and financial support to the indigenous SME sector.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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We have discussed some of the issues the Deputy has raised previously. We certainly discussed them at the SME task force that the Tánaiste set up over two years ago to focus and see if we need another agency or if we can reach the companies we want to reach through our existing structures. Our best estimate is that it is best to use the structures we have that have worked extremely well, including IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs that are reaching all those companies. We must try to use those structures to reach an even greater number of companies. We can do that. The framework announced by the Tánaiste recently and the White Paper set out the ambition to reach more companies and increase the number of companies exporting by over 2,000.

We have the structures in place. There is no need for another agency because there will be a cost with that, including planning, setting up and legislation. That might just complicate matters. We can strengthen our offering and reach those companies we have been reaching and dealing with in recent years through the Covid supports administered by the LEOs, the local authorities and our agencies. We are doing quite well on that. I am open to seeing where the Deputy thinks the gaps are. We think we have the structures in place and that the changes have been made to reach those gaps and to work with companies that have an ambition to export. The Deputy is right in that we want to encourage more companies to come forward to avail of the offerings and supports there are and to avail of the reach of new markets. We call out the benefits of the locally traded sector in the White Paper and there is a desire to do exactly as the Deputy has suggested; to better support them. We can probably best do that through digitalisation, the green agenda, the micro green programmes and a number of initiatives that are already on offer to them.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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I agree with an awful lot of what the Minister of State said, but we need to establish an Irish enterprise agency for a number of reasons. The Minister of State will agree that our over-reliance on a number of major international corporations is a risk to the State going forward, with ten companies paying a significant proportion of corporation tax. Any changes to this, which would be well out of our control, could put grave stress on our public finances. While it is imperative that we continue to attract foreign direct investment and to achieve export growth, it is equally important that we grow our indigenous sectors to provide balance in our economy and additional security for our public finances. Transforming the LEOs into a larger and more ambitious agency can deliver strong benefits to domestic businesses, workers and the State. That is why I raised this matter previously with the Minister of State. It is an idea we need to look at and we need to do a bit more than what the Minister of State spoke about. We need a stronger and more specific focus on SMEs and small companies. There is great potential for growth in the SME sector in the coming years. We need to protect that and a focused organisation would do that. Some LEOs are excellent but others are not so excellent, to put it mildly.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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It is important that we use the centre-of-excellence approach, which shares the data across the various LEOs and is able to compare them. There is that advice and guidance through the LEOs as well. Having visited all the LEOs, I saw the great work they are doing at first hand. While each LEO administers the national schemes and the schemes we have all agreed, they have their own version of the schemes as well and can tweak them slightly. It is important to do that. There is a lot of opportunity to learn across the LEO network and to drive innovation.

The new framework that has been launched and agreed with Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs initially allows the LEOs to service companies that have up to 50 employees. We can build on that. That is the opportunity to reach those companies about which the Deputy is concerned. We all want to see how we can reach and support more companies, how we can help create more jobs in our regions and how we can do that best. We can do that best through the structures that are there because we can use our time, efforts and resources to champion that as opposed to spending a long number of years redesigning something else that might not provide anything better. What is key to me is that we continually devise new support mechanisms and schemes and administer them through the network we have already. That is my sense of it, and the White Paper has given us a lot to think about. We believe we have made the right call, but we are open to teasing out this matter. If there are any gaps, we want to close them.^ Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions^