Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 304: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the factors informing his Department's decision in concert with Enterprise Ireland to relocate Enterprise Ireland's offices to the new East Point site; the business case that was put forward in favour of the site; and the alternative locations considered. [5602/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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While this is an operational matter for Enterprise Ireland, I understand that the primary benefit of locating Dublin based staff in a single location will be to significantly increase the level of collaboration within the agency which will facilitate the delivery of a more effective service to client companies. Occupying four separate premises in Dublin is sub-optimal for the agency. Crucially, having all Dublin based Agency staff in one location will enable Enterprise Ireland to further deliver the creation of integrated teams of staff with complementary expertise to service client companies. This, plus the fact that the leaseholds on two of these buildings will expire in 2008, meant that EI had to decide on an appropriate office solution that would accommodate all of EI's 600 or so currently Dublin based staff.

I also understand that, having engaged professional advisers and exhaustively explored a number of possible single site solutions, the Board of Enterprise Ireland decided that the single site office solution offered in the East Point Business Park is the most appropriate from a number of perspectives, including increasing internal efficiency, value for money and greater accommodation flexibility.

Finally, it is worth noting that there are likely to be considerable financial benefits to the Exchequer following the move to East Point, the final cost of which will need to be considered in terms of the overall financial benefit accruable to the exchequer, in addition to the business reasons outlined above, such as the sale of the majority of the Enterprise Ireland Glasnevin site.