Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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335. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the level of take-up of the development capital scheme to date, in each year since its establishment; the number of jobs supported; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34701/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Development Capital Scheme which is run through an open and competitive process, on foot of key actions under the APJ process has seen total commitments by the State of €75m to three funds. Under the Scheme, commitments were made to MML, BDO and Cardinal Carlyle that will provide equity or quasi equity of between €2m and €12m to established investee companies.In parallel with this initiative, a series of other non-bank Government backed funding sources for SMEs have been provided. These measures, in tandem with the many other actions contained in the annual Action Plan for Jobs process, have helped an extra 125,000 people back in to work since the first Action Plan has launched in February 2012.

Each of the funds established under the Development Capital Scheme is aimed at providing funding for the mid-sized, mostly export-oriented businesses with clear growth and development prospects. The funds are targeted particularly at manufacturing and technology companies in traditional sectors including engineering, food, life sciences, services and electronics. All of the funds were established in the later parts of 2013 and commenced investment in 2014.

State investment in these funds is on the same terms as the private sector. The investment managers are responsible for making investment decisions within a clearly defined investment strategy over the life time of the fund. All three funds have invested in the Irish market and are looking for new investment opportunities. I look forward to seeing investment in Irish companies in the near term.

Table 1 below breaks down the level of investment in companies under this Scheme on an annual basis to Q2, 2015 and documents the number of actual investments and the number of companies in receipt of investment.

Table 1 – Investment Data

Table 2 – Economic Profile of Companies