Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)
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Question 108: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the work of the County Enterprise Boards; the number of personnel employed by the board in respect of each board, for each of 2005 and to date in 2006; the number of proposals or requests which they received, the number of projects they have supported and grant aided; the average amount of grant aid which was for projects in each board area; the net additional employment that was created; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18212/06]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The thirty-five County and City Enterprise Boards (CEBs) were established in 1993 to provide support to small businesses with 10 employees or fewer. Their function is to develop indigenous enterprise potential and to stimulate economic activity at local level. The CEBs support individuals, firms, community groups, provided that the projects have the capacity to achieve commercial viability. Priority must be given to manufacturing and internationally traded services companies which could develop into strong export entities.

As of 31st December 2005 there were 143 fulltime and 6 part-time employees working within the CEB network. The equivalent figures for end April 2006 is 141 fulltime and 6 part-time employees. (Full details in respect of each Board are included in Appendix 1).

My Department does not collect or retain information centrally on the overall number of proposals or requests received by the CEBs. Requests or proposals received by them may not result in formal applications for assistance and many requests may be informal requests for general business advice and information. Full details on the activities of individual CEBs are available in their Annual Reports which are laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The specific types of formal CEB assistance available to micro-enterprise is broken down between financial assistance such as grants for feasibility studies, employment grants and capital grants and non-financial assistance such as Programmes covering Business Management, Mentoring, E-commerce, Enterprise Education and Women in Business networks. The general levels of available financial assistance are as follows:

∙Capital grants up to a maximum of 50% of the cost of capital and other investment or €75,000, whichever is the lesser; a portion of the grant in excess of 40%( in the BMW Region) or 35% (in the S&E Region) to be in refundable form.

∙Employment grants a grant of up €7,500 per new job, to a maximum of 10 new jobs.

∙Feasibility study grants up to a maximum of 60% (in the BMW Region) or 50% (in the S&E Region), of the cost of a feasibility study and business plan, subject to an overall limit of €6,350 (in the BMW Region) or €5,100 (in the S&E Region).

Details of the total amount of grants drawdown by project promoters in respect of each CEB for 2005, and the average grant paid, are included in Appendix 2. Accurate comparable data for 2006 to date is not yet available.

Over 30,000 net jobs were created in CEB assisted enterprises from 1993 to end 2005 of which nearly 2,000 net new jobs were created in 2005 itself. The focus of the CEBs is increasingly on the development of sustainable growth-orientated local enterprise which will deliver high quality job creation. The CEBs are also increasingly using non-financial forms of assistance and while these "soft supports" may not directly generate jobs in an enterprise they contribute positively to the wider policy objective of building an enterprise culture which, in time, can result in significant indirect job creation without direct financial input from the State.