Enterprise Supports &
Economic Outcomes in Ireland
A system-level, data-driven view of how Ireland’s enterprise architecture has evolved and what the published data actually show.
employment, 2025
employment, 2025
employment, 2025
financially supported, 2025
February 2026 · Series: Enterprise Intelligence
Ireland’s enterprise performance is usually discussed through a handful of headline figures: FDI announcements, export totals, and employment figures from the major agencies. These are informative – but they tell you more about outputs than about the system that generates them. This analysis treats Ireland’s enterprise support architecture as an integrated whole, drawing on published agency data and DETE statistical surveys to examine how public investment in enterprise capability has evolved, what it has produced, and where the structural questions lie.
The enterprise support lifecycle
Enterprise supports in Ireland operate along an implicit lifecycle. Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) support micro and early-stage firms; Enterprise Ireland supports Irish-owned firms as they scale, export and build capability; IDA Ireland supports large, internationally traded firms; and Údarás na Gaeltachta provides place-based enterprise support in Gaeltacht regions. These agencies play complementary rather than substitutable roles.
| Agency | Primary focus | Typical firm stage | Employment figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local Enterprise Offices | Micro and early-stage firms; locally traded | Start-up to growth | 40,285 (2025) |
| Enterprise Ireland | Irish-owned scaling firms; export-oriented | Growth to international | 232,425 (2025) |
| IDA Ireland | Foreign-owned multinationals; large-scale | Established to expanding | 312,400 (2025) |
| Údarás na Gaeltachta | Place-based support in Gaeltacht regions | All stages, regional focus | 9,743 (2024) |
Each figure above uses a different definition and these figures should not be summed. IDA and EI report administrative end-year totals in client companies. LEO reports jobs financially supported by LEO grant aid (excluding firms receiving only training/mentoring). Údarás reports client-company employment in Gaeltacht regions. The CSO/DETE Annual Employment Survey (AES), discussed below, provides a consistent statistical series across agencies but uses a Permanent Full-Time (PFT) definition that differs from the agencies’ own end-year totals.
Agency-assisted employment: The AES long view
The DETE Annual Employment Survey (AES) provides the single most consistent statistical measure of employment in client companies of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and Údarás na Gaeltachta. The 2025 AES report (published February 2026) shows total permanent full-time employment in agency-assisted firms at 511,786 in 2025 – the highest level recorded in the decade and an increase of 47.3% since 2016.
Foreign-owned firms account for the larger share of growth: Permanent full-time employment in foreign-owned agency-assisted firms rose 50.8% (+103,267 jobs) over the decade, from 203,412 in 2016 to 306,679 in 2025. Irish-owned firms grew 42.4% (+61,079 jobs), from 144,028 to 205,107. The foreign-owned share of total PFT rose from 58.5% in 2016 to 59.9% in 2025. Services now account for 46.3% of total agency-assisted PFT, up from 43.5% in 2016 – with the shift most pronounced in foreign-owned firms where Services now make up 54.7% of employment.
The AES 2025 report revises the 2016–2024 figures previously published in earlier AES reports. Agency client lists are periodically cleaned (new companies added, inactive clients removed, ownership reclassifications) and prior years are restated on a consistent basis. As a result, the figures shown here differ from some earlier published AES reports. For the 2009–2015 period, only the AES 2018 series is available, and splicing across the methodological break at 2015–2016 is not advisable. This chart therefore begins in 2016.
IDA Ireland: Scale, specialisation and the R&D shift
Employment in IDA client companies is captured in the AES series above (as permanent full-time employment in foreign-owned agency-assisted firms). What the IDA Annual Reports add on top of that is the composition and direction of the agency’s financial instruments, and its investment-win pipeline. The underlying policy direction – visible in both IDA’s own strategy documents and on the ground in client-company activity – is a move toward higher-value R&D, sustainability and capability-building investments rather than simply maximising job counts. 2024 saw 234 investments approved with associated future job creation of 13,500; 2025 was a record year with 323 investments approved (+38% year-on-year), 78 first-time investors and 15,300 future jobs.
IDA grants payable: Composition at sample years
The category-level breakdown of IDA grants payable is disclosed each year in the Grants Payable note to the audited accounts. Drawing on IDA Annual Reports for eight sample years across the period, three structural features of the composition are clear. First, R&D has been the single largest category in every sample year reviewed, at roughly half to two-thirds of total grants payable. Second, per-job Employment grants have fallen sharply: From around €18–23m (19–26% of total) in the 2011–2015 sample years to around €6–7m (6–7% of total) by 2019–2020, with the step-down locatable between 2015 and 2019. Third, Training grants have grown steadily over the period (from €4m in 2011 to €22.9m in 2024), and Sustainability & Energy appears as a new line item from 2023. Total grants payable rose from around €90–100m in the early 2010s, held at around €100m through 2019–2020, and rose again to €160m by 2024.
The instrument-mix shift is real and locatable in time. Through the early 2010s, per-job Employment grants and R&D grants sat at roughly comparable scale. By 2019–2020, Employment grants had fallen to around a tenth of their earlier level while R&D grants had continued to grow. Training grants roughly tripled over the 2011–2024 period, and Sustainability & Energy was introduced as a new funding line from 2023, reflecting emerging policy priorities. The picture across all sample years is consistent with a sustained move toward capability, innovation and workforce-development supports rather than per-job attraction or retention support.
IDA R&D grants in particular are typically approved as multi-year commitments, with amounts booked as “grants payable” only as project milestones are achieved. A given year’s R&D figure therefore reflects drawdowns against commitments made several years earlier, not the value of that year’s new approvals. Year-on-year moves in the R&D share may partly reflect drawdown timing rather than pure policy signal, so the chart is best read as a composition snapshot at sample years alongside the known on-the-ground direction of IDA strategy toward higher-value R&D, sustainability and capability investment. The directional shifts in Employment, Training and Sustainability grants are more robust to this timing effect because these grant types tend to be shorter-duration or one-off commitments. The full annual series is available in the individual IDA Annual Reports at idaireland.com/annual-reports; 2013, 2016–2018 and 2021–2022 are not shown here.
Cost per job sustained: A policy-efficiency metric
A useful cross-check on the overall direction of IDA policy is the Cost per Job Sustained (CPJS) metric, calculated by the Strategic Policy Unit of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (now DETE) and published each year in IDA Annual Reports. As noted in the reports: “The cost per job sustained is calculated by taking into account IDA Ireland grant expenditure to all firms in the period of calculation. Only jobs created during and sustained to the end of each seven year period are credited in the calculations.” In other words, the numerator is total IDA grant expenditure across a seven-year window, and the denominator is the number of full-time jobs created during that same window that remained in place at window end.
Across the 1997–2020 rolling windows covered by the IDA Annual Reports reviewed here, the figure declined from €19,001 per job (1997–2003 window, constant prices) to €13,475 (2006–2012), to €10,553 (2009–2015), and most recently to €5,935 (2014–2020) – roughly a 69% real decline overall.
The direction of travel is clear, but two things matter for interpretation. First, the steep drop in the most recent windows is driven primarily by a large increase in jobs sustained in the denominator: From 44,752 in the 2007–2013 window to 110,063 in the 2014–2020 window. The 2014–2019 period captured an exceptional run of IDA-client employment growth that both created jobs and retained them through to window-end. Second, because the metric only credits jobs that survived the full seven-year window, it rewards retention as well as creation – and future windows that include the Covid-related 2020 employment effects and the 2022–2024 rebalancing may not maintain the same trajectory. The direction – toward lower per-job cost – is real; the absolute €5,935 figure is a product of a particular window that may prove difficult to replicate.
Record year: 323 investments approved (+38% vs 2024); 78 new-name investors; 80 R&D investments supporting €2.5bn in client expenditure commitments – the first year above €2bn; €1bn committed across 31 sustainability projects; 183 investments (57%) in regional locations outside Dublin. These press-release figures are not directly comparable with the audited historical accounts but are consistent with the decade-long trend.
Enterprise Ireland: Client outcomes and expenditure composition
Enterprise Ireland-supported client companies employed a record 234,454 at end-2024 and 232,425 at end-2025. The 2025 figure reflects a net increase of 2,938 – the lowest post-pandemic net gain – with 12,608 new jobs created against job losses elsewhere in the client base. Client exports reached €34.57bn in 2023 (the most recent year published). For historical context, EI client company employment was 175,750 at end-2013 (comprising 149,718 full-time and 26,032 part-time) with client exports of €17.1bn – meaning the past twelve years have seen roughly a 33% increase in employment and a doubling of client exports.
| Metric | 2013 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Client company employment | 175,750 | 218,178 | 225,495 | 234,454 | 232,425 |
| Full-time employment | 149,718 | – | – | – | – |
| Net jobs added | 5,442 | 10,841 | 5,011 | 6,212 | 2,938 |
| Client exports (€bn) | 17.1 | – | 34.57 | – | – |
Source: Enterprise Ireland Annual Report 2013; Enterprise Ireland end-of-year press releases (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025). The 2025 and 2024 baselines differ slightly due to standard annual client-list revisions, in line with how EI reports its own figures. Full-time and part-time split not consistently reported in recent-year press releases.
Expenditure composition: 2013, 2019 and 2024
Total EI expenditure grew from approximately €260m (2013) to €403m (2019) to €505m (2024) – roughly 94% nominal growth over 11 years. Because EI restructured its reporting categories across the period (with 2013 using line items like Beef & Sheepmeat Fund and County & City Enterprise Boards – the latter becoming the LEO network from 2014, and with 2024 consolidating R&D grants under a broader “Direct enterprise development” heading), direct category-for-category comparison is not feasible. The chart below aggregates expenditure into three broad buckets that can be mapped across all three years with reasonable confidence.
Two patterns stand out. First, company-level direct enterprise development and R&D support has grown from 55% of EI expenditure in 2013 to around 65–69% in 2019 and 2024 – consistent with a clear strategic shift toward scaling export-oriented Irish firms through direct capability and innovation investment. Second, funds to third-party bodies (BICs, Crafts Council, and in 2013 the CEBs before they were re-organised as LEOs in 2014) have remained a stable 12–13% of EI expenditure throughout. Admin, operations and promotion has shrunk as a share of the total (from 31% in 2013 to 19–22% in the later years) even as the absolute figure has grown, reflecting genuine operating leverage at the agency level.
The buckets above are the analyst’s aggregation, not EI’s own reporting structure. EI restructured its chart of accounts between 2013, 2019 and 2024, and from 2014 the County & City Enterprise Boards (previously a third-party EI line item) became the separately-reported LEO network under EI oversight. In 2013 R&D was reported as a distinct category; by 2024 equivalent R&D spending is subsumed within the broader “Direct enterprise development” top-line. Inflation over 2013–2024 has been material, particularly from 2021 onwards, so nominal growth figures overstate real expenditure growth. The full line-item breakdowns are available in each agency’s Annual Report.
Local Enterprise Offices: Small businesses, local reach
The 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) operate under Enterprise Ireland’s oversight and provide financial, training and mentoring support to micro and early-stage businesses. At end-2025, LEOs financially supported 40,285 jobs in 7,148 client companies – the highest level since the network was established in 2014, and the 12th consecutive year of jobs growth.
The 2020 dip is the only year of negative net jobs in LEO history since inception, with a Covid-19 impact of -1,494 jobs. Since 2021 the network has returned to positive growth but at moderated rates: Net additions averaged roughly 2,800 per year in 2022–2025, compared with typical pre-pandemic rates of 3,000–3,800. The 2025 figure (+2,479) is broadly in line with this post-pandemic baseline.
Údarás na Gaeltachta: Regional specificity
Údarás na Gaeltachta is the regional development agency for the Gaeltacht regions. Client companies employed 9,743 at end-2024 (net +217; 869 new jobs), with record client sales of €1.098bn and exports of €658m. Client grants paid out of Údarás’s audited accounts have been running at roughly €5–7m annually since the post-crisis restructuring, with a higher 2010 figure reflecting exceptional restructuring expenditure.
The 2010 figure (€20.5m) reflects exceptional capital and restructuring expenditure during the post-crisis period and is not representative of the subsequent steady state. From 2012 onwards the agency has operated at roughly €5–7m annual grant spend.
Through the shocks: ABSEI indexed view, 2008–2024
The DETE Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact (ABSEI) covers sales, exports, value added, payroll and other economic activity in all agency-assisted client companies with ten or more employees. ABSEI 2024 (the most recent full report, published 12 February 2026) confirms total sales of €567.5bn (+10.5% on 2023), exports of €513.6bn (+11.2%) and value added of €226.8bn (+8.8%) – of which 88.1% is generated in foreign-owned firms. Direct expenditure in the Irish economy reached €83.8bn. For 2023 (the last year with employment data included in the series on this page), total PFT employment was 452,126; back-calculation from the 2024 report’s value-added-per-employee figures implies approximately 460,500 for 2024.
The story is resilience and productivity. Through the 2008–2010 financial crisis, sales fell about 10% and employment around 10%, but value added only about 2% below its 2008 level – the capability base held up even as volume contracted. Through Covid-19 (2020), employment dipped only marginally; sales, exports and value added continued to grow. By 2024, indexed against 2008: Sales 379, exports 416, value added 429, employment ~167. The productivity gap – growth in value added running more than 2.5x the growth in employment – is the single most important structural feature of the data.
| Indicator | Foreign-owned | Irish-owned | All client companies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total sales | 494.2 | 73.3 | 567.5 |
| Total exports | 475.0 | 38.6 | 513.6 |
| Value added | 199.7 | 27.1 | 226.8 |
| Direct expenditure in Irish economy | 43.3 | 40.5 | 83.8 |
| Export intensity (exports / sales) | 96% | 53% | – |
| Value added per employee (€k) | 755 | 138 | – |
Source: DETE ABSEI 2024 (published 12 Feb 2026). Totals may differ from sums due to rounding.
The ownership split is stark: Foreign-owned firms account for 87% of sales, 92% of exports, 88% of value added, and 52% of direct expenditure in the Irish economy. Direct expenditure is the closest to parity because Irish-owned firms, while much smaller in sales and value added, retain a higher share of spending domestically (55% of Irish-owned sales went back into the Irish economy as direct expenditure; for foreign-owned firms this is 9%). The foreign-owned productivity premium – €755k of value added per employee versus €138k for Irish-owned – reflects both genuine capability advantage and the transfer-pricing / IP-holding structure of Ireland’s ICT and pharmaceutical sectors.
Employment vs value-added decoupling
Value added per permanent full-time employee in ABSEI firms rose from €191,652 in 2008 to €228,215 in 2015, €346,139 in 2020, and €456,059 in 2023 – roughly a 2.4x increase over the period. Some of this reflects genuine productivity upgrading (capability investment, capital deepening, shift toward higher-margin activity); some reflects the sectoral mix shift toward high value-added ICT and pharmaceutical services that carry a large multinational transfer-pricing footprint in Irish accounts. Both are real, but they have different implications for sustainability.
The broader enterprise base tells a compatible story. CSO Business Demography (business economy excluding holding companies) shows total active enterprises rising from 244,195 in 2008 to 278,862 in 2020, with the growth concentrated in Information & communication (+61%), Professional / scientific / technical activities (+36%) and Administrative & support services (+31%) – while Construction stayed flat. The agency-assisted cohort, particularly the foreign-owned tier, is weighted toward the same sectors driving growth in the broader base.
System-level observations
- The system has complementary roles, not substitutable ones. LEOs operate at scale on a small-firm base (~40k jobs); Enterprise Ireland on medium-to-large Irish firms (~232k); IDA on large foreign-owned firms (~312k); Údarás on a place-based basis (~10k). These populations overlap very little.
- The emphasis has moved from job count to job value. IDA grants payable have moved away from per-job Employment grants (from €18–23m in the early 2010s to under €6m in 2024) toward Training (to €22.9m in 2024) and Sustainability & Energy (a new line item in the 2020s). R&D remains the single largest category across the sample years reviewed. Per-job support is now a small share of the instrument mix; the underlying direction is toward higher-value jobs rather than simply more jobs.
- Value-added growth has outrun employment growth by a wide margin. By 2024, value added in ABSEI firms had grown 4.3x its 2008 level while employment had grown 1.67x. This decoupling is durable, not episodic, and concentrated in the foreign-owned high value-added sectors.
- Resilience through shocks has been real. The 2008–2010 contraction, Brexit, Covid-19 and the 2022–2023 interest-rate cycle all appear in the agency data, but none have reversed the long-run trajectory. The system has demonstrated cyclical rather than structural sensitivity to shocks.
- The 2025 moderation is real but partial. IDA recorded a record investment count (323) with headline employment still rising; EI net jobs fell to post-pandemic lows (+2,938); LEO continued growing (+2,479). Signals are mixed, not directionally negative.
Data sources and notes
Primary statistical sources.
DETE Annual Employment Survey 2025 (published 12 Feb 2026): enterprise.gov.ie/en/publications/annual-employment-survey-2025.html
DETE Annual Employment Survey 2018 (for pre-2016 context): enterprise.gov.ie/en/publications/annual-employment-survey-2018.html
DETE Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact (ABSEI) 2024 (published 12 Feb 2026): enterprise.gov.ie/en/publications/annual-business-survey-of-economic-impact-2024.html
DETE Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact (ABSEI) 2023: enterprise.gov.ie/en/publications/absei-2023.html
DETE press release on AES 2025 and ABSEI 2024 topline (12 Feb 2026): enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news/2026/february/
CSO Business Demography (BRA12, PxStat): data.cso.ie/table/BRA12
Agency sources.
IDA Ireland Annual Report 2024 (audited): idaireland.com/annual-reports/annual-report-2024
IDA Ireland Annual Reports 2015, 2012 and 2020 (audited, used for historical grants-payable, cost-per-job and investment-mix data): available via the IDA Annual Reports archive at idaireland.com/annual-reports
IDA Ireland 2025 End-of-Year press release (18 Dec 2025): idaireland.com
Enterprise Ireland 2024 end-of-year press release (Jan 2025): enterprise-ireland.com
Enterprise Ireland 2025 end-of-year press release (Jan 2026) – reported by RTE and Enterprise Ireland: rte.ie/news/business/2026/0126/
Enterprise Ireland Annual Report 2024 (expenditure): enterprise-ireland.com (AR 2024)
Enterprise Ireland Annual Report 2019 (expenditure): enterprise-ireland.com (AR 2019)
Enterprise Ireland Annual Report 2013 (historical expenditure and employment baseline): available in the EI publications archive at enterprise-ireland.com/en/news/publications
LEO 2024 / 2025 end-of-year announcements (via Enterprise Ireland and DETE): enterprise-ireland.com
Údarás na Gaeltachta 2024 end-of-year statement: udaras.ie
Methodological notes.
Agency employment definitions differ: IDA and EI publish administrative end-year client-company totals; AES uses a permanent full-time statistical definition; LEO reports jobs financially supported. Figures are not directly addable across agencies.
The AES revises prior-year figures annually as agency client lists are reviewed. The AES 2025 report revises 2016–2024 upward relative to previously published AES reports. The 2015–2016 boundary in the AES series carries a methodological break; readers interested in long-run pre-2016 data should consult the AES 2018 report and note that splicing the series across the break is not advisable.
ABSEI monetary figures are in current prices. Inflation has been material in the 2021–2024 period and direct comparisons across years overstate real growth.