James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

I have enormous respect for the separation of the roles that the Department and the agencies have to do. It is important not to forget Enterprise Ireland, which is here with us too. We can see the difference between a town that has had success with bringing in an IDA client and one that has not. For example, Panadol is manufactured in Dungarvan and we have seen the spin-offs from that. Nurofen's laboratories are going in as well and there are so many companies that co-locate. A 20-minute drive up the road, Youghal is a town that had a huge, historic role to play in industrial manufacturing but those roles, unfortunately, became redundant because of the passage of time and a change of demand. Youghal and Dungarvan are like Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities economically.

On top of the clustering of the three new facilities, which is extremely important for the State, there should be an obligation in the Department's communication with the IDA to give attention to towns that feel in some sense forgotten. There is an economic reality to this and I do not want to take away from that but I have been frustrated with IDA Ireland. I met with it but I never got a formal reply from the meeting I had with the previous chief executive on that matter. I wanted to take that opportunity to raise it again.

I commend the representatives of IDA Ireland on what they are doing in Cork. There have been some phenomenal success stories and growth.

I call Deputy McCormack for his first round.