Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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205. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which she and her Department continue to support encourage and foster the creation of jobs through the indigenous sector both in terms of traditional industry and innovative proposals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14674/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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My Department, through Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs provides a range of supports to help Irish companies start, grow and export.  There are now over 201,000 people employed by EI supported companies across the country. The fact that over 130,000 of those 201,000 jobs are outside of Dublin is significant.

The objective of Enterprise Ireland’s new ‘Global Ambition’ strategy 2017-2020 is to support enterprises across the economy, to grow into strong Irish international companies, developing world-leading products and services and exporting them all around the world.

There is a vast range of programmes and supports offered to companies to drive this strategy. These include management capability, leadership and marketing/sales skills as well as promoting innovation and R&D. Investment in these areas is becoming more important as the demands of the marketplace evolve and become tougher.

In terms of supporting traditional industry, my view is that manufacturing in Ireland is still, and will always be, an essential part of a well-balanced economy.  Our manufacturers have innovated and moved with the times – and they will continue to do so.  Advances in ICT, new materials, biotechnology, fuels, and nanotechnology offer scope for continuous innovation in manufacturing. Together with the opening up of world markets, these advances offer great opportunities for Irish manufacturers.

Manufacturing today is not just about making things anymore. It is about finding solutions for a more sophisticated and demanding range of customers. It includes research, design, maintenance, sales and marketing, logistics and distribution too.

The best way to protect and increase manufacturing jobs is to compete with excellent products and services, using high technology, drawing on design, innovation and our strong science base.

 We are placing a particular focus on encouraging startups and small businesses to embrace the culture of innovation that now exists and maximise the benefits of technology.

My Department also ensures that companies can access the right type of funding, appropriate to their stage of development. This ranges from microfinance right through to seed and venture capital, development capital and risk-sharing credit guarantees through the banks.

Enterprise Ireland’s activity across all sectors of the economy is supporting a total of 400,000 directly and indirectly supported jobs.

Furthermore, our 8 Regional Action Plans for Jobs are building on the jobs potential of each region. At local level, the Local Enterprise Offices, supported by EI, are supporting indigenous businesses and entrepreneurs in every county.

I am currently finalising plans for a regional initiative of up to €60m to support collaborative approaches to grow and sustain indigenous enterprise and jobs across the regions. This will be administered by Enterprise Ireland.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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206. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the degree to which she continues to promote and support job creation through the small business sector with particular reference to the need to ensure the minimisation of practices likely to impede small businesses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14675/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, I am consistently focused on supporting job creation. Since 2012, the annual Action Plan for Jobs has delivered actions to support job retention and creation. The unemployment rate has dropped from a high of 15.1% in February 2012 to 6.6 % in February 2017. The figure for the number of people in work has risen from 1,836,000 in Q3 2012 to 2,048,000 in Q4 2016.

We hold structured dialogue with key stakeholders and we advocate across Government to ensure the needs of SMEs are taken into account in the execution of national policy. In 2017, my Department will be developing an SME Test to ensure that policy makers “Think Small First.”

My Department listens to the concerns of the small business sector and actively engages with small businesses and their representative organisations. We have the Advisory Group for Small Business (AGSB) which is chaired by the Minister for Small Business and Employment, Pat Breen TD. This forum and others such as the Retail Consultation Forum and the inter-departmental High Level Group on SME Access to Procurement are there to assist small businesses and show that this Government is willing, and wants to, engage with small business.

The two Departmental developmental agencies dealing with micro, small and medium companies, Enterprise Ireland (EI) and the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs), are targeted with assisting and developing small businesses through the start-up phase and beyond. EI has approximately 5000 clients supporting over 201,000 jobs. The LEOs support over 6,500 companies which employee 32,500 people. 

In total, there are over 170 different Government supports for Irish start-ups and small businesses, from a wide variety of Departments and Agencies. All of these supports are included the cross Governmental www.supportingsmes.comportal. By answering the eight quick questions in the Online Tool, a small business will, in one location be able to: find out which of the over 170 Government business supports from 27 different Government Departments, Agencies and Initiatives are available to them; and obtain information on the range of Government supports for accessing credit with small business.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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207. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which she continues to compete for job creation opportunities inside and outside the EU, particularly in anticipation of Brexit; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14676/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Government has already taken a number of important initiatives, including in bolstering the capacity of our enterprise agencies to maximise job creation opportunities inside and outside the EU.

The recently published Action Plan for Jobs 2017 builds on this with specific measures to:

- support enterprises, particularly those most dependent on UK markets

- identify and target new markets

- assist Irish businesses expand and scale and

- help position Ireland to benefit from new opportunities that arise.

The Government has just published a new trade and investment strategy which is supported by an extensive programme of Ministerial-led trade missions, as part of a major drive towards market diversification.

Enterprise 2025 continues to provide a solid roadmap for longer-term enterprise development with a focus on building the resilience of the enterprise base, export-led growth and job creation. In anticipation of the type of strategic exercise that may be needed to restate or reposition our global offering, I have asked my officials to undertake an urgent review of progress under Enterprise 2025. 

At the Agency level I have directed IDA Ireland to explore the potential for winning more FDI on account of Brexit and the Agency and its staff are already working hard with this goal in mind.

In our efforts to win more FDI, we can continue to rely on the selling points that make investing in Ireland so attractive in the first place including our continued membership of the European Union and Eurozone.

I secured additional funding for IDA in 2017 to strengthen its capacity to communicate Ireland’s unique selling points to the international business audience and to help target key markets to secure investment and jobs.

The potential sources of FDI are likely to come from:

- existing IDA Clients with a presence in Ireland who also have a presence in the UK;

- overseas clients (US, European and Asian) who have a presence in the UK but not in Ireland;

- UK companies operating in the UK who now need certain access to the European Market; and

- International clients without a presence in Europe seeking a European home.

From an indigenous enterprise perspective, Enterprise Ireland’s strategy for the period 2017-2020 focuses on:

- Consolidating and growing exports into the UK market

- Expanding the Irish export global footprint, re-orienting towards N America, Canada, Asia and the Middle-East

- Expanding the EI Export Platform

I have already announced 39 extra staff for EI’s overseas offices and in the Irish based team to support exporting companies in the context of Brexit. Staff will be assigned to:

- Markets that are growing and have scale (including China, India, Latin America, Africa);

- Markets where we are already well established but with potential for further growth (including UK, France, Benelux, Germany, US, the Nordics).