Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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239. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the funding situation at Enterprise Ireland; its cash reserves; the commitments that have been entered into in terms of its routine support of business ventures to the end of 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42867/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Enterprise Ireland are striving for ambitious targets in 2015, building on the success of recent years, by aiming to support some 13,000 new jobs and increasing client exports to €20bn.

Enterprise Ireland received an exchequer spending allocation of €163.4m for 2015 to support industry, comprising €50m for subhead A7 and €113.4m for subhead B4. Enterprise Ireland’s (Subhead A7) baseline allocation was increased by €1m, from €49m to €50m to facilitate the delivery in 2015 of enterprise programmes such as the Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2013-2018, Innovation Fund Ireland, Competitive Feasibility Funds, Competitive Start Funds, trade supports, Management Development Programmes and Lean Programmes.

The (Subhead B4) supports for research was also increased, by €3m, from €110.6m to €113.4m to meet the growing demand for EI R&D supports, such as HPSUs, Innovation Vouchers, Technology Centres and collaborative projects with Irish third level institutions.

Enterprise Ireland was also given sanction to spend €56m of Own Resource Income, comprising €50m to be earned in 2015 supplemented by a 2014 capital carryover of €6m. Own Resource Income refers to revenues derived from for example redemption of shares and dividends from equity investments, grant refunds, rental income etc.

EI received €77.5m exchequer funding for administration and general expenses for 2015.

EI does not maintain cash reserves over and above its working capital requirements. EI draws down its exchequer funding on a weekly basis from my Department. It only draws down funds that are expected to be paid during these periods less any estimated own resource income receipts. Where the estimated own resource income receipts plus exchequer funding exceeds the estimated expenditure the exchequer requirement is reduced accordingly. This ensures exchequer funds are only drawn down when required and EI’s cash book balances are kept to a minimum where possible.

The anticipated end of year position is that EI will have spent the total exchequer and ORI allocations, thus fully meeting its 2015 commitments.