Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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232. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the contingencies her Department has in place should the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union in the upcoming referendum regarding Irish jobs and trade; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15282/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The EU-UK question is a strategic priority for Government, and for my Department. This is because UK membership of the Union is hugely important both to Ireland’s interests, and to the interests of a stable, successful and prosperous EU as a whole. The Government’s overriding focus has been, and remains, on helping to keep the UK in the Union, not preparing for its departure. Work has been underway across Government Departments, including my own, for some time to ensure we best understand the range of issues at stake.

The Department of the Taoiseach also plays a leading role, given the whole-of-government dimension that is essential in this work. In this context, in May of last year, a unit was established in the Department of the Taoiseach, specifically dealing with British-Irish and Northern Ireland affairs.

The Department of Finance, for example, commissioned the research published last November by the Economic and Social Research Institute on Irish-British macroeconomic links in the context of our joint EU membership.

We know from this and various other published assessments that there are very significant strategic and economic risks for Ireland if the UK were to leave the EU. In order to mitigate these risks, the Government played a constructive role in the negotiations that took place at EU level, including in the context of the discussions leading up to the European Council in February, working with the British Government and all our EU partners towards a consensual basis for the UK’s continued membership of the Union.

Given the importance to the enterprise sector of this issue, both IDA and Enterprise Ireland are factoring this issue into their own contingency planning and continue to track where potential impacts may arise.

Clearly, the pace at which any potential exit was achieved, and the terms which the UK might negotiate with the EU across a wide range of domains will be a key determinant of the impact on the economy, and on jobs and trade in particular sectors. My Department would of course continue to work closely with colleagues in the UK and EU Member States to ensure that any potential disruption to trade and investment is minimised.

Enterprise Ireland already has a significant number of programmes available to companies who face competitive threats from various sources. There include Lean Programmes, Market Diversification, Innovation and Management Development. These will be the tools available to assist companies with planning and preparation.

Further, a key policy priority in recent years both for my Department and for Enterprise Ireland has been to support geographic market diversification, so that Irish owned exports to non-UK markets increase by 50% to reach exports of between €5 and €6 billion by 2020.

As a result, both Service and Manufacturing firms exports have shown a clear reduction in dependency on the UK market. A growing number of Enterprise Ireland supported exporters are exporting to more than five countries - an indication of a strengthening resilience in market diversity terms. In 2014, 41.8% of EI assisted exporting firms exported to more than five countries compared to 33% in 2009.