Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 December 2018
80. Deputy Eugene Murphy asked the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation the steps being taken to address the imbalance in regional development and job creation in view of recent CSO figures (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50333/18]
View answerI note the release of the results of the Labour Force Survey for Q3 2018 as issued by the CSO Tuesday November 20th.
Overall the release is very positive. Figures show that employment continues to grow strongly with 66,700 jobs created in the year from Q3 2017 to Q3 2018. This brings total employment to 2,273,200.
The number of people in employment has increased in six of the eight regions in the year from Q3 2017 to Q3 2018. The exception to this is the Mid-West (which has remained static) and the Border region.
In the West Region, in the year to Q3 2018, an extra 5,100 people were in employment. In the same period, there were 1,100 fewer people unemployed in the Region.
Since becoming Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, I have made regional development my top priority. Indeed, enterprise development and job creation in the regions of Ireland is a key policy priority of this Government.
We want to have a situation where all regions are enabled to realise their potential as contributors to economic recovery and growth, and thereby reduce regional disparities.
Under the Regional Action Plan for Jobs (RAPJ) we committed to achieving an overall jobs uplift of between 10 and 15 percent in each region by 2020 and to bring and/or maintain unemployment levels in each region to within at least one percentage point of the State average.
Since the launch of the RAPJ there has been an increase of 258,800 people in employment across the State since Q1 2015 to Q3 2018, with 163,500 people in the regions outside Dublin entering employment in that period.
That is over 63% - or 3 out of every 5 jobs created – for regions outside of Co. Dublin (Q1 2015 – Q3 2018).
In the year from Q3 2017 – Q3 2018, just over half (51%) of the jobs created were outside of Co. Dublin.
The West has seen good progress under the RAPJ, with employment in the region increasing by 15.7% from Q1 2015 to Q3 2018. There are 28,400 more people in employment in the region from Q1 2015 to Q3 2018.
Live Register numbers have fallen in all three counties in the West Region in the past 12 months.
CSO figures show that the unemployment rate in the West Region is currently at 6.6% (Q3 2018), which is slightly higher than the State average but is within one percentage point of the State average.
The Enterprise Agencies continue to work to contribute to employment and economic growth throughout all regions. Enterprise Ireland’s strategy for 2017-2020 aims to create a further 60,000 jobs, while sustaining existing ones, which will make an important contribution to jobs and economic growth across all regions.
In 2017, both Enterprise Ireland and IDA reported job increases in the West of 7% and 5% respectively. Through partnership between Enterprise Ireland and the Local Authorities, the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) in 2017, had 628 client companies in the West employing 3,057 people. This is an increase of 152 jobs from 2016.
IDA meanwhile will continue to target a minimum increase in investment of 30% to 40% in each region outside Dublin to 2019.
The West Region Action Plan for Jobs has been a key policy response for supporting employment growth in the Midlands, working with public and private stakeholders. In April of this year, I met with the Chairs of all the Regional Action Plan for Jobs committees and other regional stakeholders, to start a process to Refresh and Refocus all Regional Plans, including the West Region Plan, to ensure their effectiveness, relevance and impact out to 2020, particularly in light of Brexit. This work is ongoing at present and the Plans are due to be completed by the end of the year.
On Monday, under the second call of the Regional Enterprise Development Fund (REDF), I announced an allocation of just over €29 million in funding that will support regions throughout the country to deliver on their economic and enterprise development potential.
21 projects from all over the country received funding. This is in addition to the €30 million in funding under Call 1 of the REDF that I announced in December 2017 that also funded 21 projects. The REDF is being rolled out by my Department, through Enterprise Ireland.
Over the first and seconds calls under the REDF, the West Region secured funding of over €7.1 million across four projects.
Under Call 2 of the REDF I announced:
- €2.4 million for Galway City Innovation District to provide coworking space, private office space and event space for scaleup companies and a landing site for FDI companies.
- €2 million for the development of a market-focused Marine Innovation and Development Centre at Midc Páirc Na Mara.
- €182,786 for the Burren Lowlands project that will create a focus point for the development of activities to create and attract additional jobs to this area.
These three projects are in addition to the funding received by the BIA Innovator Campus under the first call, which will support food entrepreneurship in the West.
The National Planning Framework (NPF), as part of Project Ireland 2040, aims to guide the future development of Ireland over the next 20+ years, and to influence the spatial patterns of a projected 1 million increase in our population. The NPF and the 10-year National Development Plan have been developed in alignment with each other in order to explicitly link spatial planning policy and infrastructure capital investment. Taken together, will help unlock the potential in the regions.
The Government is focused on unlocking the potential in the regions. Co-ordinated delivery of infrastructure, at the same time as enabling regional enterprise development under Project Ireland 2040, should help to better distribute our future anticipated population growth across the whole country – while also tackling congestion and quality of life issues.
The next step in the delivery of the National Planning Framework involves the development of Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSESs) for each of three regions (Eastern-Midlands, Southern, North-Western). These will provide a statement of regional ambition and articulate the unique characteristics of each region, with a focus on the interaction between spatial policy and enterprise opportunities.
My Department, and the enterprise development agencies, have been engaging pro-actively with each of the Regional Assemblies to ensure that national enterprise and innovation policies are reflected in the draft strategies. It is our view that the RSESs should have a focus on ‘place-making’ to facilitate the creation of concentrated settlements, in which people can live and work in a vibrant environment, and public services can be efficiently provided as envisaged by the Ireland 2040 plan. We know that there is a strong interdependence between the planning and development of attractive places and where companies will choose to establish, invest and create jobs.
