Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 September 2018
58. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the measures she is taking to address the high levels of employment deprivation in County Tipperary, specifically Tipperary Town and its environs; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39065/18]
View answerAs a result of the revised regional groupings, all of County Tipperary is now included in the mid-western region for CSO data collection purposes. Within this region, unemployment has fallen from a peak of 16.6% in 2012 to 5.8% at the end of July 2018. Numbers in employment in the region have increased from 153,700 to 214,200 over the same period. While data from the labour force survey are not available on a county-by-county level, trends in the live register can give an indication of underlying trends in local unemployment. I am pleased that they are positive for Tipperary. Overall, the live register in Tipperary has fallen by 46% in the five years to August 2018, which is close to the reduction of 48% nationally. If the Deputy is under the impression his area is lagging behind the rest of the country, I am pleased to tell him it is not. In the year to August 2018, the live register in Tipperary had fallen by 1,270 people, or 12%, again, closely in line with national trends. In Tipperary town, the live register has fallen from 1,840 in 2012 to 962 currently, that is, by almost half.
The Government's primary strategy to tackle unemployment is twofold. First, the Action Plan for Jobs, which was originally led by the former Minister for Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, and is now led by the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Heather Humphreys, sets out to create an environment in which businesses can succeed and create jobs. That success is evident and I wish continued success to all of those people. This policy now includes a specific regional action plan relating to the former south-east region, covering south Tipperary. The plan has resulted in more than 21,000 jobs being created in the region in the past three years. Successful implementation of the plan is targeted at the creation of 25,000 additional jobs in the region by 2020. The plan aims to achieve this through building on key sectors of potential for the region like technology, biopharma and tourism in the beautiful county of Tipperary.
The Minister will be aware that one of the most accurate indicators of deprivation according to population statistics comes from the national census of population, as represented by the Pobal HP deprivation index. Variables used in the compilation of the HP index include those related to demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parenthood, overcrowding, social class, occupation and unemployment.
Figures can be dressed up any way we like. However, Tipperary town and its environs are in a sad place. It has very proud people, wonderful entrepreneurs and a wonderful workforce but they are not getting the opportunity. The Minister can throw us into the mix of the whole mid-west region and come up with what figures she wants. However, according to the Pobal index, the overall male unemployment rate in north Tipperary stands at 14.5% while the figure is 14.2% in south Tipperary. In the south of the county, according to the latest data for semi-skilled and unskilled classes, unemployment for this group stands at 23.7%. Five years prior to that, in 2011, it stood at 23.9% so it reduced by just 0.2% in five years, no matter what way the Minister wants to dress up the figures.
We need serious efforts by IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and others to bring industry to Tipperary town and its environs. It is not fair to throw them into the mix, as the Minister did glowingly. I ask her to come to visit the town to see the situation at first hand.
It is not my job to dress up statistics. The facts are the facts. It is not my job to spin them as "A" or "B".
Well, the Minister did a good job of it.
My job is just to relay the information to the Deputy. The Deputy asked for information on the huge unemployment issues in Tipperary and I have explained to him how fortunate Tipperary has been in the past number of years to have enjoyed the recovery it has, but we are not done. I reassure the Deputy that every effort is being made to continue to create jobs, building on the good work of both international and local businesses in Tipperary in providing employment in both the town and the county. The Government's goal is to create 200,000 jobs nationally by 2020, of which 135,000 are to be created outside the capital, which includes Tipperary. The south-east regional Action Plan for Jobs was launched in September 2015 and it covers counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford. The plan will see employment increasing in the region at a rate of 10% to 15% over the years from now until 2020. That will result in the creation of 25,000 new jobs in the region, which will benefit the people of Tipperary town and county. The reality is that tens of thousands of jobs are being created and that Tipperary is benefitting to nearly the same extent as the rest of the country. Those are not my figures, it is just reality.
The Minister is looking at Tipperary through rose-tinted glasses. The real issue is in the Minister's last answer where she referred to the south-east region of Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary. In an earlier answer, she said we were in the mid-west region. That is the problem with Tipperary town. It is on the border of the mid-west and the south east. We are falling between all stools. We do not have the jobs in Tipperary town, we do not have the IDA bringing visitors down and we do not have the factories either. The Minister is looking through the figures and cosying them up to suit whatever she wants to say herself. I gave her figures. I gave her the deprivation indexes. Tipperary town and its environs have been left behind badly over 25 to 30 years and it has not got the industry. The Minister can quote figures from the mid-west or the south east, but I ask her to focus on west Tipperary, including Tipperary town. The jobs are not there. While we have thousands of foreign direct investment jobs in Clonmel and other parts of Tipperary, for which we are grateful, I am talking about west Tipperary, which is languishing behind. The town is not being supported at national level or at local level by the county council. We need support. We are crying out for it.
The Deputy might be right about my rose-tinted glasses when it comes to Tipperary given that both my father and father-in-law hail from his good county.
The Minister should come back down and look at it.
Progress reports on the south regional Action Plan for Jobs are published twice a year and they show that 1,500 new jobs were created in the south east during 2017. Of those 1,500 jobs, 1,200 were created by IDA Ireland. The authority, which the Deputy claims does not come to his county, was responsible for creating 1,200 or the 1,500 jobs.
I asked about Tipperary town.
If the Deputy wants to have a conversation about building jobs in every single town in every single part of his county, every single one of us would like that.
The question was specific.
However, the Deputy cannot ignore the fact that Tipperary is thriving. It is flourishing. IDA Ireland is paying attention to it and Enterprise Ireland has increased employment there by 16% since 2015.
It must be the water the Minister is on instead of the glasses.
The Deputy cannot come in here and make claims which are blatantly false and which misrepresent the reality for the people in Tipperary. I am sorry but I will not allow it.
