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Jobs Initiative

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 June 2011

Thursday, 9 June 2011

Ceisteanna (43)

Denis Naughten

Ceist:

41 Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the steps he is taking to support enterprise development in the midland and western regions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14640/11]

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Freagraí scríofa

Job creation is central to our economic recovery and the Programme for Government has job creation at its core. The role of my Department is to ensure that we have the right policies in place that will support and grow our enterprise base in order to facilitate both job creation and job retention. The Jobs Initiative announced on 10 May focuses our limited resources on measures that offer the greatest potential for expansion and employment creation in the domestic economy.

The Initiative had a significant focus on tourism, and the reduction in the VAT Rate along with the abolition of the travel tax will provide an important stimulus to tourism businesses in the regions concerned and around the country.

Two Industrial Development agencies under the aegis of my Department, IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, together with the relevant County Enterprise Boards (CEBs) support enterprise development in the regions in question.

The primary role of IDA Ireland is the attraction of high quality Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Ireland. An integral and fundamental element of this role is the agency's mandate to promote sustainable and balanced regional development. One of the high level goals of IDA's strategy "Horizon 2020” is that in the period to end 2014, 50% of new FDI projects will be located outside of Dublin and Cork. To date in 2011, of the 22 investments announced, 16 have met have met this criteria. Six of these are located in the West Region and five in the Midlands. These announcements alone have the potential to create up to 1,000 jobs.

Considerable success has been achieved in attracting high quality investment to both regions. At present, there are a total of 115 IDA supported companies employing over 18,000 people between both regions. The key sectors of focus are life sciences, information and communications technologies and high value services activities. IDA has a good pipeline for 2011 and is hopeful of securing further investments across a number of locations.

Enterprise Ireland has a wide range of programmes to address the multi-disciplinary demands of entrepreneurship and the diversity of business types. The agency supports companies to achieve productivity gains, internationalisation and export growth. It assists with research and development, management skills acquisition, market information and seed and venture capital. Between the two regions, the agency has almost 700 clients employing over 17,000 people. In 2010, Enterprise Ireland-assisted companies created 457 new full-time jobs in the Midlands region and 786 in the West. In addition, over €23m was approved for the agency's client companies in the two regions. To stimulate entrepreneurship within the regions Enterprise Ireland is supporting an Enterprise Platform Programme based in GMIT (Galway and Castlebar) and in the Athlone Institute of Technology. This programme will start at the end of June 2011 and is open for applications.

During 2010, the CEBs in the two regions paid out over €2.3m in grant assistance to 207 clients. Of this, €1.1m was paid out to 101 client companies in the Midlands Region comprising counties Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath. €1.2m was paid out to 106 client companies in counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, which make up the West Region. This year, the CEBs are continuing to support enterprise development through the provision of both direct financial assistance (in the form of capital, feasibility and employment grants) and through indirect or "soft support" assistance such as management development, capability support and the development and delivery of activities to highlight and promote enterprise.

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