The North East/North West Action Plan for Jobs is the key policy response for supporting employment growth in the Border region, with public and private stakeholders actively engaged in delivering a range of innovative and practical actions set out in the Plan. Sectors targeted as part of the plan include traditionally strong sectors for the region like agri-food, manufacturing/engineering and tourism.
The core objective of the plan is to see a further 28,000 at work in the region by 2020 and to reduce the unemployment rate to within 1 percentage point of the State average.
Progress Reports on the implementation of the Regional Action Plans across all regions show that that good progress has been made in implementing the actions. Published Reports are available on www.regionalapj.ie.
There has been a substantial improvement in the North East / North West region since the commencement of the National Action Plan for Jobs in 2012, with an additional 20,900 in employment in Q1 2017 compared to Q1 2012. There are now almost 5,000 more people in work in the region since the launch of the Regional Action Plan initiative in 2015.
Moreover, the unemployment rate in the region has fallen from 10.2% in quarter 1 of 2015 to 7.5% in quarter 1 of this year, compared to the then national rate of 6.7%.
The latest CSO figures show that there were 3,747 people on the Live Register in County Sligo in August 2017. This figure represents a decrease of 15.5%, or 688 individuals, over the previous 12 months.
This reduction is to be welcomed and demonstrates that while there are still challenges to surmount in bringing down this figure further, the overall trend for County Sligo is one of steady improvement.
The enterprise agencies in particular are working very hard towards the ambitious targets set out in the Regional Action Plan.
There were 23 multinational companies employing over 2,290 people in county Sligo in 2016.
IDA Ireland continues to actively market Sligo, where the agency has eight hectares of available lands on the Finisklin Business & Technology Park and a 31 hectares green-field land bank in Oakfield which will be accessed by Western Distributor Road. I understand that work on the Western Distributor Road will commence by the end of 2017.
Enterprise Ireland (EI) supported companies employed 1,546 people in 2016 in Sligo. EI provided €2 million in payment to companies located in Sligo over the period 2014 – 2016. In addition, Enterprise Ireland and local development groups funded the establishment of four Community Enterprise Centres in Sligo.
EI’s recent strategy for the period 2017-2020 is Brexit-focused and has a number of ambitious targets, namely, the creation of 60,000 new jobs by 2020 and the growth of exports by €5bn to €26bn per annum. The EI office in Sligo is assisting in the implementation of this strategy with its 70 clients and was involved in an “Enterprise Start” event that took place in Sligo last February to encourage and support new start up business ideas.
The Sligo Local Enterprise Office (LEO) is fully engaged in supporting the micro-enterprise and small business sectors in the county to create and sustain jobs. In 2016, under the Competitive LEO fund, LEO Sligo was partner on two successful projects to support small business in Sligo.
To support regional enterprise development, additional funding of up to €60m is being rolled out by Enterprise Ireland over the next 4 years to support the development and implementation of collaborative and innovative projects that can sustain and add to employment at a national, regional and county level.
I am very conscious of the challenges as a result of Brexit faced by companies operating in close proximity to the Border, many of which trade freely on both sides of the Border.
Since the UK referendum, the State agencies under my remit have been active in supporting companies in assessing and addressing their exposure to Brexit.
EI’s current “Prepare for Brexit” campaign includes a Brexit scoreboard available to all companies to self-assess their preparedness for Brexit and generates a report suggesting appropriate responses.
For exporting companies, new resources were secured, including extra staffing, for EI and the LEOs in Budget 2017 to assist businesses to maintain and grow export markets.
Based on significant analysis and stakeholder consultation, my Department is currently working on further measures targeted at the needs of companies in the wider economy around working capital and business development.
