John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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671. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to outline her plans to provide additional resources in the coming years for agencies, including IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, and for vulnerable sectors of the economy, such as food and farming. [5346/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The future annual allocations for the enterprise agencies, including Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs), will be managed through each annual Estimates Budgetary process in the years ahead taking account of the mid-term Capital Plan review in 2017 and spending review 2017.

It is the case that the Programme for a Partnership Government commits to providing an additional €500 million in funding to Enterprise Ireland, LEOs and Údarás na Gaeltachta (an additional €300 million), and to IDA Ireland (an additional €200 million), to support the Government’s Regional jobs plan whereby the objective is to deliver an additional 200,000 jobs by 2020, of which 135,000 additional jobs will be in the regions.

As part of 2017 Budget negotiations, I successfully secured a €100 million increase in the Department’s expenditure ceilings by year end 2016 and for 2017. This represents a 9.6% increase over the Department’s allocation secured in the 2016 Revised Estimates Volume.

The additional funding is in recognition of the need to accelerate regional jobs development and to maintain our supports for research, development and innovation. It will also help the Enterprise Agencies to proactively respond to the evolving challenges and opportunities on foot of “Brexit” and to the changing foreign direct investment landscape due to wider international developments.

The additional money secured since December 2016 and for 2017 comes in the form of an extra €97 million in Capital investment and an extra €3 million in Current Pay expenditure. This additional Pay allocation is specifically for “Brexit” related posts across the Department, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and the Health and Safety Authority. This will allow for the recruitment of over 40 extra staff to deal with a range of  issues of relevance to my Department’s remit, spanning many policy and sectoral issues.

Capital funding of €555 million is being made available to my Department in 2017. This is a €52 million increase on the 2016 Revised Estimate Volume allocation of €503 million. This is a 10% increase and is the largest capital allocation ever secured by my Department.

Specifically this year the IDA capital allocation is increasing from its 2016 base of €112 million to €137 million. This is an increase of 22%. This will enable the IDA to continue to compete in the intensively competitive global market for mobile investment to win new investments to Ireland. This significantly increased funding will also be used by the IDA to maintain and further grow employment across their existing clients in Ireland who now employ 199,877 people in Ireland, the highest level ever in the IDA’s history.

Enterprise Ireland is being provided with a total capital allocation of €185 million in 2017 through my Department’s Vote. This is an increase of €11.6 million, up 6.6% on its 2016 allocation of €173.4 million. This will enable Enterprise Ireland continue its enterprise and innovation supports across its client cohort who now directly employ over 201,000 people in Ireland. This is the highest level of employment in Enterprise Ireland supported client companies ever.

In 2017 the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) capital grants allocation in my Department’s Vote is increasing by €4 million to €22.5 million. This is a 21% increase and also represents the highest capital provision ever made to the LEOs or to their predecessor City and County Enterprise Boards.

Responsibility for the farming and food sectors falls to my colleague the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine though some of the enterprise agency funding through my Department’s Vote does directly support aspects of the food and marine sectors. For example, Enterprise Ireland provides a range of targeted supports across various sectors, such as their Lean Programme, to assist clients to improve their operations, business performance and competitiveness capability.