Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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486. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of performance reviews of employment grants conducted by the Industrial Development Agency that found that posts for which grant aid was committed were not created; the total number of unfilled posts and the total value of grants returned. [36897/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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When approving financial assistance for a company, IDA enters into a legal and binding contract with the company involved. The contract, which is confidential between IDA Ireland and the company, includes conditions and milestones with which the company is required to comply before any financial assistance is paid. All IDA clients enter into formal Grant Agreements in full knowledge that the penalty for non-performance is a pro-rata repayment of grants.

Employment Grants for approved job creation projects are only paid following investment incurred by IDA approved clients and the creation of actual jobs. Where a shortfall in job numbers arises, IDA will review the case and seek recovery of grant where appropriate.

IDA monitors job creation in individual client companies on an on-going basis. In addition the Annual Employment Survey, which is carried out by Forfas, is utilised by IDA as a further tool of verification of job numbers in IDA sponsored companies. In addition, at the time of a grant claim, IDA also seeks formal verification of job numbers, prior to payment of the grant.

Figures for 2012 show that the total amount of grant refunds made to IDA was €3.132m, of which €2.8m was in respect of Employment Grants.