John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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IDA Ireland has listed nine new advanced technology buildings in different locations. Will Mr. Shanahan, by way of a submission to the committee, give us the criteria behind the selection of those areas and tell us what brought them across the line? I am looking at 2011, 2012 and 2013 in the context of jobs created and am bearing in mind that the IDA proposes to put one of the buildings in Carlow, which is in my constituency. In Carlow the IDA created 197 jobs in 2011, 132 in 2012, and 91 in 2013, but in the other part of that constituency, Kilkenny, the IDA created only one job in 2011, 125 in 2012 and 80 in 2013. I do not propose to go through every county but to read the data on a selection. In Laois the IDA created two jobs in 2011 and none in 2012 and 2013. In Limerick, which Deputy O'Donovan was speaking about, in spite of the question about the landbank there and how it will be dealt with, the IDA created 253 jobs in 2011, 556 in 2012 and 560 in 2013. I know that Dublin has a critical mass but when people outside of the capital look at these figures, in spite of the counties being talked up by their public representatives, they see 7,351 jobs were created in Dublin in 2011, 8,464 jobs in 2012 and 6,862 jobs in 2013. The public would suggest to us that our efforts, our political policies and the efforts of the IDA have, by and large, failed some of the regions or some of the counties within those regions.