I thank the joint committee for the invitation to discuss job creation and business start-up schemes, with a particular focus on the county and city enterprise boards. As it will be aware, the Government has set job creation as one of its key priorities in the programme for Government. The role of the Government is not to create jobs but to create an environment in which companies can grow and jobs can be created by entrepreneurs. It is important, too, in the current difficult environment being experienced by businesses, that a focus is placed on maintaining existing jobs.
The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation plays a central role in delivering on the Government's objectives with regard to job creation. It is supported in this objective by the enterprise development agencies, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, the county and city enterprise boards and Shannon Development. Forfás also plays an important role in providing policy analysis, advice and support on enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation matters. In addition, the work of Science Foundation Ireland underpins the job creation activities of Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
The committee has received summary information on the schemes operated by the enterprise development agencies. Links to the supports available to businesses for job creation and productivity can be found on the Department's website. If the committee has specific questions about any of these schemes, my colleagues and I will endeavour to answer them today. The schemes are reviewed and adapted on a regular basis to ensure they are meeting the needs of companies operating in Ireland. The Department and its agencies are carrying out a comprehensive evaluation of all the key enterprise programmes to ensure their continued relevance and effectiveness.
The client groups of the various agencies vary from indigenous microenterprises to foreign multinational companies. Depending on their client group, the agencies' supports focus on supporting entrepreneurship and business start-ups, promoting exports, and enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of both indigenous firms and overseas companies based in Ireland.
Enterprise Ireland provides direct supports for Irish companies at all stages of development to foster job creation and export growth. Its programmes offer a range of assistance in the broad categories of company growth, exploring new opportunities, capability building, high potential start-ups, seed and venture capital programmes, and research collaboration and commercialisation. In 2010 Enterprise Ireland client companies created 8,193 new jobs, bringing the total number employed in Enterprise Ireland companies to 137,241. Enterprise Ireland's global allocation for 2011 is €307 million, which includes capital, administration costs, some funding from the national training fund and some from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for the food sector.
IDA Ireland's objective is to attract high quality foreign direct investment projects to Ireland and to more firmly embed existing FDI companies in the economy, thereby generating as many new jobs as possible each year and maintaining existing jobs. The agency provides grants for client companies to support capital investment, research and development, training and employment. To address the need to maintain jobs in Ireland, IDA Ireland is actively encouraging its clients to engage strongly in transformation initiatives and assisting them in programmes to improve company-wide competitiveness; enhance the use of new technologies; grow the skills of the business; engage in research, development and innovation; develop new business processes; and make company operations more energy efficient. IDA client companies created almost 11,000 new jobs in 2010. In 2011, 50 IDA investments have been announced with the potential to employ at least 4,500 people. IDA Ireland's budget for supports to industry in 2011 is €93 million. That is its capital or grant allocation. Adding in current and administration expenditure, the total allocation for 2011 is €132 million. I can provide complete figures as we have a revised table for committee members.
Shannon Development is responsible for supporting foreign and indigenous companies in the Shannon free zone and provides similar supports to those that IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland offer to their clients. Companies supported by Shannon Development created 362 new jobs in 2010 and support approximately 6,000 jobs in the zone. The agency has been allocated €3.6 million in Exchequer funding to support enterprise in 2011. This is separate from Shannon Development's operation costs which are met from its own resource income.
The county and city enterprise boards deliver supports to facilitate the start-up and development of sustainable microenterprises which can develop over time into strong export entities and provide employment locally. The priorities for the boards in 2011 are to assist existing microenterprises in the survival and growth of their businesses, to assist new start-ups to the greatest possible extent, and to continue to focus on the stimulation of entrepreneurship locally. The boards provide business start-up grants, business expansion grants and feasibility and innovation grants which are designed to assist promoters with researching market demand for a product or service and examining its sustainability. They also provide soft supports, including mentoring programmes, start-your-own business programmes, general business training, management development training and the schools enterprise education programme. The total budget allocation for the boards in 2011 is €27.242 million, of which €15 million is capital expenditure and the balance is administration expenditure, including some soft supports. This represents a strong investment in the microenterprise sector, notwithstanding the additional level of demand on CEB services that has been generated in the current difficult economic climate. Some 4,433 new jobs were created in CEB-supported companies in 2010. At the end of last year, 32,910 people were employed full time in CEB-supported companies, while a further 11,462 were employed in a part-time or seasonal capacity.
Access to finance and credit has been identified as a major issue for small businesses in the past couple of years and continues to be a concern. As the committee knows, the Government has taken measures to restructure and recapitalise the banking system to ensure it provides for substantial new lending in the economy. The Department of Finance, the Central Bank and the Credit Review Office are rigorously monitoring the banks' activities to ensure credit is available to borrowers who meet reasonable credit standard requirements. Separately, the Department is actively working on the introduction of a temporary partial credit guarantee scheme which was announced in the Government's jobs initiative in May. This targeted scheme will be aimed at commercially viable businesses which can demonstrate repayment capacity but cannot secure credit facilities. The scheme is in the design stage and further details will be announced before the end of October.
Another component of addressing industry's finance needs that the Minister is putting in place is the microfinance fund. Getting access to working capital is critical for start-up microbusinesses and early stage micro or sole traders. We are working on arrangements for the establishment and operation of a microfinance fund which is being developed in consultation with the relevant stakeholders. The aim is to formalise proposals for the Government's consideration in the context of budget 2012.
A further measure to improve cash flow for SMEs is the requirement from 1 July for the Health Service Executive, local authorities and all other public sector bodies, apart from the commercial semi-State bodies, to pay their suppliers within 15 days of receipt of a valid invoice. This should improve businesses' cash flow and enhance their operational capability. We will monitor implementation of the measure closely in the coming months. The Department is also examining how SMEs' access to public procurement opportunities can be improved. In this context, the Minister has established a steering group chaired by his Department to examine how barriers to accessing procurement can be overcome. The steering group includes the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform which has overall responsibility for public procurement policy, and also the National Procurement Service and Enterprise Ireland. The steering group will report progress to the Minister regularly. The small business advisory group which was established in June 2011 and is chaired by the Minister of State with responsibility for small business, Deputy John Perry, will also play a key role in identifying the issues that need to be addressed to support small business and realise the job potential of the sector, and ensuring action is pursued in all identified areas.
In addition to the job creation supports I have outlined, the Department is actively examining the potential for job creation in the emerging sectors that have been identified as holding particular potential for Ireland, including health and life sciences, silver technology, cloud computing, digital games and the green economy. Achieving the job creation potential of these sectors will require action and co-ordination across a number of Departments. We are in regular contact with other key Departments in this regard. The Cabinet sub-committee structure provides a useful mechanism to overcome any obstacles that need to be addressed to achieve progress on a cross-departmental basis.
I thank the Chairman and the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation. My colleagues and I will be happy to answer any questions they may have. If there are any details we cannot provide today, we will supply them in writing within a few days.