Pat Deering
Question:274. Deputy Pat Deering asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of Industrial Development Agency Ireland-supported jobs there were in County Carlow at 31 October 2014. [47893/14]
View answerTuesday, 16 December 2014
Questions (274, 277)
Pat Deering
Question:277. Deputy Pat Deering asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his plans to attract a foreign investment company into County Carlow. [47896/14]
View answerWritten answers
I propose to take Questions Nos. 274 and 277 together.
The Forfás Annual Employment Survey reports on the job gains and losses in companies that are supported by the enterprise development agencies. Data is aggregated at county level on an annual basis. Figures for 2014 will not be available until early next year.
I have been advised by IDA Ireland that in 2013, the latest year for which data is available, there were 735 people employed in 7 IDA Ireland client companies in County Carlow. In order to achieve regional economic development, IDA Ireland markets integrated regions with critical mass and markets specific locations within these regions in response to the requirements of mobile FDI.
Carlow is part of IDA Ireland’s South East Region along with counties of Carlow, Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny and South Tipperary. The region has a strong cluster in Life Sciences with many prestigious brands in the sector located there. In addition, there is also a significant Financial Services cluster in the South East Region, which is home to the many major players in that sector including Unum located in Carlow.
The presence of international brands provides an attraction for additional companies to potentially locate in the South East Region including Carlow. Recent examples of where the cluster benefitted investment decisions in the Region were the announcements by Nypro and Sanofi Genzyme creating 200 jobs and investing a further €44 million respectively. These announcements provide potential employment for people in Carlow. It must also be noted that there is also a strong cluster of indigenous companies operating in the business services sector including Maven TM based in Carlow.
IDA Ireland recognises the challenges for Ireland and its regions in attracting FDI and, with this in mind, a new IDA strategy will be launched early in the New Year, detailing goals and the broad direction IDA will take to accomplish them over the next five years.
I have been working with my Department on the development on a framework for the formulation of Regional Enterprise Strategies that will enable us to identify the sustainable competitive strengths of each region and to better integrate the efforts of the enterprise development agencies and other regional stakeholders in supporting enterprise growth and jobs in areas of potential. It is my intention that this framework will be applied initially to produce action-oriented plans to support enterprise growth and jobs in the Midlands region and the South East region. Learning in these regions will inform any adaptations that might need to be made prior to the framework being applied to other regions in the course of 2015.