Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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50. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of enterprise start-ups by sector in each of the years 2006 to 2016 in tabular form. [40118/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Central Statistics Office publishes data relating to newly registered businesses on an annual basis since 2008, as part of their Business Demography reporting. The data from 2008 to 2015 is contained in Appendix 1.

Enterprise Ireland is the state agency under my aegis with responsibility for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. Enterprise Ireland works in partnership with Irish enterprises to help them start, innovate, scale and win export sales in global markets.

A key focus of Enterprise Ireland’s activity is supporting start-ups and the start-up ecosystem as illustrated by the following EI programmes and service level agreements:

- National Entrepreneurial Development Programme

- Competitive Start Fund

- High Potential Start Ups equity support

- Regional Accelerator Scheme 2015 -2017

- Campus Incubator Scheme

- Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2013 -2018

- Service Level Agreement in place with the BICs (Business Incubation Centres)

- Service Level Agreement in place with Local Enterprise Offices to support micro-enterprise.

Appendix 2below presents the number of enterprise start-ups (High Potential Start Ups and Companies supported by the Competitive Start Funds) supported directly by Enterprise Ireland in each of the years 2006 to 2016, by sector.

The Local Enterprise Offices also promote a culture of entrepreneurship and support start–ups in their local area. Details of the number of LEO enterprise start-ups by sector in each of the years 2014 to 2016 are set out in Appendix 3below. These figures are based on the number of priming grants issued by the LEOs in the years in question. (It should be noted that the LEO client database was reviewed as part of the process of restructuring the enterprise supports for micro-enterprises and so comparative data for the years prior to 2014 is not available.)

Details of the number of applications in the Best New Idea and Best Start-up Categories of the annual Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) competition, which has been run by the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) since 2014, are set out in the table below. The purpose of the IBYE awards is to promote entrepreneurship as a career choice among young people. Information detailing the breakdown of the applications into individual enterprise sectors is not collated.

Numbers of IBYE applications 2014-2016