Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the investment and employment goals that have been achieved by collaboration between Enterprise Ireland and the Industrial Development Agency through their joint senior management team; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51859/12]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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As part of the Action Plan for Jobs, the Government has set out a series of ambitions which represent key investment and employment goals:

- To become the best small country in which to do business.

- To build world-class clusters in key sectors of opportunity.

- To build an indigenous engine of growth that drives up the export market share of Irish companies.

- To support the creation of 100,000 net new jobs by 2016 with the longer term objective of having 2 million people at work by 2020.

In seeking to deliver on these objectives, the Action Plan for Jobs sets out a major programme of work representing more than 270 individual actions for delivery during 2012. The establishment of an Enterprise Ireland/Industrial Development Authority Senior Management Team is one such action which is being implemented to drive effective collaboration on identified areas of opportunity and which can contribute to the achievement of our high level goals. The joint Senior Management Team has focused on the formulation of pilot initiatives. Some of the initiatives that have been rolled out so far include:

- The development of an Enterprise Ireland/IDA company engagement model and shared itineraries, including marketing and events, aimed at attracting entrepreneurs and start-ups to Ireland.

- Joint initiatives, including marketing and events, aimed at attracting entrepreneurs and start-ups to Ireland.

- Joint approaches to sectoral development.

The first joint event initiative aimed at attracting entrepreneurs and start-ups to Ireland was the Tech Crunch Conference which was held in San Francisco from the 8th-12th September 2012. IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland hosted a pre-conference VIP dinner for the speakers involved in the conference.

Joint preparations are underway for the ‘Le Web’ event which is taking place in Paris in December 2012. It is one of the largest technology conferences in Europe which attracts some 2,400 people from 60 countries including some of the biggest names in the US and European tech industries. IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland will have a joint presence at the conference to attract Start-Up companies and entrepreneurs to strategically grow and internationalise their business in Ireland.

Both these events are significant marketing tools for increasing Ireland’s image as being one of the best locations in Europe for early stage companies. The work of this team is not independent or separate to the work of the respective agencies, but instead contributes to the achievement of each agency’s employment and investment targets.