Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 137: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if she will make a statement on her Department's Estimate for 2010. [4823/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The 2010 Estimates which were published in parallel with the Budget on 9 December 2009 make provision for Gross Exchequer funding of €1,590,526 million for my Department this year. In addition, a sum of €426.431 million is being provided from the National Training Fund, giving my Department a total budget of €2,016,957 million for 2010.

Many programmes and agencies under my Department's remit are taking reductions on their 2009 Estimates in line with the need to improve efficiency in public spending. Overall, however, my Department's Estimate for 2010 represents a net increase of €70.7 million on the 2009 provision.

Additional funding is being made available, in particular, for targeted measures to support jobs and tackle unemployment. For example:

A sum of €114.5 million is being made available in 2010 for the Temporary Employment Subsidy Scheme. This represents an increase of €94 million on the 2009 provision.

An extra €20 million is being provided for a new Activation Fund, which will provide education and training opportunities for the unemployed.

An extra €14 million is being provided to complement support from the European Globalisation Fund, which assists redundant workers to get back into employment.

Other key areas which will be a focus for my Department's funding in 2010 include restoring competitiveness through enterprise support, and building Ireland's Smart Economy through investing in Science, Technology and Innovation.

Some technical refinements to my Department's Estimate for 2010 will be made in the Revised Estimates Volume which will be published later this month. Full details of my objectives for the use of my Department's 2010 allocation will be presented to the Select Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment in due course.