Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 29 February 2012
97 Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the top ten Irish exporters; the proportion their exports make up of total Irish exports; and the steps he is taking to rebalance jobs creation and economic growth towards sustainable indigenous small and medium enterprises as opposed to the over-reliance on FDI. [11688/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraMultinational enterprises are a very significant component of the Irish enterprise sector and will continue to play an important role in our economy. IDA multinational client companies support over 146,000 direct jobs and spend €19 billion in the Irish economy each year. The environment for foreign direct investment remains robust and has created core strengths in key sectors.
The pharmaceutical and ICT sectors make a very significant contribution to the Irish economy in terms of export earnings and employment. The medical, pharmaceutical and chemical sectors accounted for €46 billion, or 51%, of total merchandise exports in 2010. Computer components and electronics accounted for €8 billion of merchandise exports, while computer services accounted for €28.2 billion, or 38%, of all services exports in 2010. Between them, the two sectors employ over 110,000 people in Ireland. These sectors will therefore continue to play an important role in the Irish economy.
However, an indigenous engine of export growth is also an essential ingredient for economic recovery. We must now create the environment where Irish companies can consistently build market share, where more companies start to export for the first time, where clusters of competitive advantage develop, and Irish-owned and foreign-owned companies work more closely together to forge new areas of opportunity.
Although exports from the indigenous sector have increased over recent years, the overall contribution from the sector needs to be further enhanced. Our goal for increasing exports is to support enterprises to achieve challenging targets by building their share in key markets and to increase the proportion of output exported by indigenous companies.
Indigenous companies are also finding opportunities in emerging sectors which have been identified as holding particular potential for Ireland. These include sectors such as health and life sciences, cloud computing, digital and media services, digital gaming, and the green economy.
Supporting new and existing indigenous businesses to grow and export is central to our plans for recovery, growth and jobs. The recently launched action plan for jobs contains a significant number of measures which are aimed specifically at the facilitation and incentivisation of growth among SMEs in Ireland. Among the measures announced are a drive to support 95 new high potential start-ups (HPSUs) with a significant contribution to that number from ambitious international mobile entrepreneurs; the establishment of a potential exporter division within Enterprise Ireland to stimulate greater activity within companies across all regions and to reorient those demonstrating real growth potential from the domestic to the international market place; the introduction of capital initiatives including the development capital scheme and the Second Call of Innovation Fund Ireland; rolling out of a number of market initiatives, including trade missions, an international market week, attracting 600 inward buyers to Ireland, driving the take up of the Going Global initiative, and working proactively with the diaspora.
ON the top ten Irish exporters, I am precluded from putting sensitive information relating to the Enterprise Agencies client base into the public domain. However, according to the latest statistics available, Ireland's top merchandise exports are medical and pharmaceutical products and the top services exports are computer services.
