Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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44. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the specific targets set for agencies under her auspices following the recent comments by the Taoiseach to double the Team Ireland footprint overseas by 2025. [38308/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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In January 2017 Enterprise Ireland published its strategy for the period 2017-2020. The strategy was developed in the context of Brexit and seeks to inspire and drive Irish enterprise to ‘Build Scale and Expand Reach’ and has ambitious targets. Despite economic and market uncertainties, Enterprise Ireland’s strategic targets are to:

- Assist clients to create 60,000 new jobs by 2020 and to sustain the existing record level of jobs

- Grow annual exports by €5bn to €26bn per annum

- Increase the level of spend in the Irish economy by €4bn to €27bn per annum by 2020.

- Inspiring more companies to have global ambition.

Enterprise Ireland’s will deliver on its ambitious targets by:

- Driving innovation in Irish enterprise to unprecedented levels through new supports to reach the target of €1.25bn in R&D expenditure per annum by 2020.

- Improving the competitiveness of Irish companies through Enterprise Ireland’s Lean programmes and new client engagement model, which will provide targeted supports based on agreed milestones.

- Increasing the diversification of Enterprise Ireland’s client company exports into new markets, with two-thirds of exports going beyond the UK. This includes a major focus on the Eurozone where Enterprise Ireland are targeting a 50 per cent increase in exports. In May 2017 Enterprise Ireland launched announced a new Eurozone Strategy to drive this. This strategy will be accompanied by a new ‘Irish Advantage’ campaign which will target Eurozone buyers to promote Irish innovation in key Brexit impacted sector.

Enterprise Ireland’s overseas structure through its network of 33 overseas offices and its extended Pathfinder (Trade Consultant) network provides client companies with access to Incubation and Hot-Desking Facilities, local market knowledge on a sectoral basis, introductions to buyers/suppliers/partners, and market intelligence such as competitor analysis, identification of professional services etc.

The activities of Enterprise Ireland’s overseas network are supported by the Market Research Centre and Strategic Marketing Unit based in Dublin along with a range of financial and capability developments supports aimed at helping client companies to compete and win sales in overseas markets.

To support the implementation of Enterprise Ireland’s strategy the agency employs 686.5 people across a national and international network of offices. Within these figure, 145.5 staff are located in Enterprise Ireland’s international offices. As part of its strategic response to Brexit, EI received sanction to create 39 additional posts. Of these 39 Brexit related posts, 26 have been filled to date and are included in the total figure above.

In 2015, IDA Ireland launched its five year strategy, ‘Winning: Foreign Direct Investment 2015-2019. This Strategy, along with my Departments Action Plan for Jobs 2017, outlines the following targets:

- Complete construction of new advance buildings in Sligo, Castlebar and Tralee.

- Generate closer links and business opportunities between Irish owned and foreign owned enterprise to achieve increased global sourcing sales.

- Increase investment in each region outside of Dublin in line with IDA Ireland’s strategy of increasing investment in each region outside Dublin by 30 to 40% by 2019.

- Target 7,000 net new jobs in 2017 through the creation of new jobs and sustaining current employment in existing IDA companies.

- Work to win another 180 FDI projects in 2017 including investment from high growth and emerging markets together with new forms of FDI.

IDA Ireland operates an overseas office network consisting of approximately 73 executives, in 20 Offices in 12 countries across the world.

IDA Ireland has been allocated funding for ten extra posts specifically designated to deal with Brexit, seven of these have been filled to date. The remaining three are expected to be filled in the near future. IDA Ireland is also engaging on an ongoing basis with client companies from all over Ireland regarding the commercial impact of Brexit on Irish firms.

Expansion of the resources of EI and IDA in the context of increasing Ireland’s global footprint will be the subject of discussions with the relevant Departments and Agencies in due course.