Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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84. To ask the Taoiseach the estimated cost of funding for mentoring programmes provided by Enterprise Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50917/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Enterprise Ireland’s mission is to help Irish companies achieve global success. Enterprise Ireland’s Mentor Network programme helps companies to grow faster and survive longer. The mentoring programme matches new, early stage and established business owners with experienced business mentors. Mentors are entrepreneurs and senior executives who have experienced the kind of challenges - and opportunities – that companies face in their businesses. Assignments are typically focused on:

- Commercialisation of new products and services

- More targeted sales and marketing

- Expansion into new markets

- Strategic business planning

- Attracting outside investment and funding options

- Improved Research & Development, design, innovation, production and logistics

- Better HR management and management succession.

So far in 2017, Enterprise Ireland has set up 463 one to one assignmentswith clients; 423 with Enterprise Ireland clients and 40 with non-Enterprise Ireland clients i.e. Local Enterprise Offices (LEO) IDA Ireland and Udaras. These assignments range from 3 to 10 sessions with a business mentor. In addition to one to one assignments, 213 companies / promoterspresented their investor ready business plans for feedback at specially convened mentor-panel practice pitching sessions. There are currently 407 business mentors on the Enterprise Ireland Network and there are 606 assignments in progress.

The cost of running the Enterprise Ireland Mentor Network programme in 2017 is €508,945.