Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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250. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on an analysis by an organisation (details supplied). [14915/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Enterprise and job creation in the State is influenced by many aspects of Government policy – the national and international economic climate, the domestic business environment, including the regulatory regime, the taxation regime, competition policy, access to business finance, the availability of skills in the economy and so forth.

My Department advocates in favour of pro-business policies across all these areas in order to encourage the start-up and development of businesses across the entire spectrum of the business population in the State.

More immediately, the annual Action Plan for Jobs is a series of initiatives, across Government Departments and Agencies designed to support business and job creation from all sources.

Enterprise 2025, which was recently revised and published by my Department, is a longer term strategy to ensure that we continue to build resilient enterprises that can compete in the face of the various international economic challenges.

My Department is also currently leading on a Country Review of entrepreneurship and SME policies being developed in conjunction with the OECD. This eighteen-month project will review the entire SME business ecosystem and provide key recommendations that will provide the structure with which this Government can push forward into the future with a coherent and inclusive SME Strategy. Through this Review and subsequent Strategy, I, and my Department, will further increase our efforts to support SMEs, especially indigenous enterprises, and create the most vibrant ecosystem for businesses. 

In terms of indigenous companies, my Department’s agencies are primarily focussed on directly supporting start-ups and existing businesses that can scale and compete internationally. 

Enterprise Ireland supports companies in urban and rural areas to start, innovate and remain competitive in international markets, now and into the future. At the centre of the agency’s strategy, Build Scale, Expand Reach 2017 - 2020, are strategic targets focused on:

- Assisting clients to create 60,000 new jobs by 2020 while sustaining the existing record level of jobs;

- Growing the annual exports of client companies by €5bn to €26bn per annum;

- Increasing the level of spend made by client companies in the Irish economy by €4bn to €27bn per annum by 2020; and

- Inspiring more Irish owned companies to have global ambition

On an annual basis Enterprise Ireland works with approximately 5,000 companies through a network of market and sector advisers based across 10 national offices and 33 international offices. These manufacturing and internationally traded services companies are a critical source of existing employment and job creation in every county in Ireland. 

However, many businesses are not involved in sectors or exporting that fall under the remit of EI. For those businesses, the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) are the ‘first-stop-shop’ for providing advice and guidance on business issues, including signposting to sources of support, available through agencies such as Revenue, the Department of Social Protection, Education and Training Boards, the Credit Review Office and Microfinance Ireland. The LEOs also offer advice and guidance in areas such as local authority rates, public procurement and other regulations affecting business. 

This support is available to micro-businesses i.e. those businesses that employ less than 10 people which represent the vast majority of businesses in the State.

For eligible businesses, financial assistance and ‘soft’ supports in the form of training and mentoring may also be available through the LEOs.  

LEO Highlights from 2017 show that -

- 7,135 new jobs (gross) and 3,760 jobs (net) created by LEO backed client companies, with jobs growth across every county

- 30,373 people participated in business training programmes

- 8,393 mentoring assignments were provided to small business owners to give guidance and advice around key business issues.

- 1,179 business projects received direct financial assistance.