The Government is committed to ensuring the most equitable regional distribution of job opportunities and I have impressed upon the industrial development agencies the importance of making even greater efforts to provide employment throughout the regions.
IDA Ireland is actively pursuing a strategy to increase employment in County Laois. As part of the agency's marketing efforts to enhance the attractiveness of the county for inward investors, it entered into a land swap with Laois County Council in 1997. This resulted in the establishment of a new 45 acre business and industrial park by IDA Ireland on the Mountrath road. At the end of 1997, IDA Ireland invested approximately £500,000 for the provision of the necessary services and landscaping to enable the park to be established as a quality location to compete for overseas mobile investment.