The head of Ireland’s start-up agency has admitted the ongoing housing crisis is seriously impacting the growth potential of Irish businesses.

Chief executive of Enterprise Ireland (EI) Leo Clancy said his agency was “hearing an awful lot of that” with regard to housing issues, specifically companies struggling to locate living space for prospective employees.

“Housing is a very big concern in terms of our clients’ ability to grow,” Mr Clancy told the Public Accounts Committee, though he added the view of EI “is we don’t comment on policy matters, we stick to employment”.

He said concerns expressed about the impact of the housing crisis are routinely relayed to Government.

“All Government departments are acutely aware” of the crisis, he said.

Asked why he had not listed housing as a potential risk for EI’s start-up clients going forward, Mr Clancy said housing concerns were “broadly covered” as one of the contributing factors under the risk heading 'labour and skills'.

Other risks facing the start-up sector include inflation, supply chain challenges, future sustainability targets, the transition to “digitally-enabled” operating models, and the funding of start-ups for ongoing growth, he said.

Asked if he expected the coming months and years would bring additional risks, Mr Clancy replied: “We certainly do.”

Nevertheless, he said he did not have particular concerns for one sector over another with regard to the troubled financial situation globally.

Asked if tech was an especially worrisome sector given the ongoing large-scale layoffs being announced at tech giants like Indeed and Amazon, Mr Clancy denied that was the case.

“We saw growth in all sectors across 2022,” he said. “There are none that I would be more worried about more than others.

“Tech hasn’t gone away, we’ve seen the demand for tech accelerate,” he said, adding if he had a concern “it would be our clients’ ability to raise more money for themselves” given the ongoing financial instability, something Mr Clancy said “could harm their growth”.

He conceded that as far back as April 2022 Irish early-stage start-ups had been “looking at how to conserve their cash for longer”.

“They were pulling back their plans until they saw how things were going,” he said, admitting that trend was “probably tech sector specific”.

On how EI could help in mitigating the housing crisis itself, Mr Clancy said the agency had a direct involvement with the Housing for All programme in terms of working with developers and construction companies to help them to increase their productivity.

Mr Clancy said 2022 had seen EI continue its “strong performance”, with its clients creating nearly 11,000 new jobs and increasing its workforce by 5% to more than 218,000.

Reporting: The Irish Examiner