Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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46. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the amount of Exchequer and European moneys invested in the employment subsidy scheme in each of the years 2009 to 2011; the number of businesses that received funding from the scheme; the average amount of funding per enterprise; the amount of funding drawn down under the scheme; the number of part-time and full-time jobs that were supported, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38312/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Employment Subsidy Scheme (ESS) was launched in August 2009 to help employees retain jobs and employers to retain productive capacity. The objective was to provide an employment subsidy to vulnerable but viable manufacturing and/or internationally traded services enterprises engaged in exporting. The ESS was administered by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of my Department and the funds were provided from the Vote for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation with an allocation of €115.8m from the Department and the remaining €200k being met from Enterprise Ireland's operational budget.

The scheme entailed the payment of a subsidy of €9,100 per annum towards full time employees (working an average of 35 hours or more per week) or €6,370 for part time employees (working an average of 21 hours or more per week). A key aspect of the scheme was the multiplier effect. This saw qualifying companies commit to retaining additional jobs.

Companies declared, at the time of application, the number of employees that were at risk of being made redundant and employee subsidies could not exceed this number. As part of the scheme, employers committed to retain a defined number of jobs for each job subsidised.

Overall, the State subsidised 14,124 jobs (full time and part time) at a cost of €116 million. This led to a commitment to retain those jobs and an additional 79,234 (a total of 93,358). The subsidies were paid to 1,521 companies where 34,681 jobs were declared to be at risk with an average payment of €76.3k per company.

Table 1 shows the total grants paid under the Employment Subsidy Scheme from 2009-2011.

Table 1: total grants paid under the Employment Subsidy Scheme from 2009-2011.

Please note: While the ESS ended in 2010, Enterprise Ireland paid claim applications up to March 2011 in cases where full supporting claim documentation was not received until after the closing date.