Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

Yes, but that represents progress given the figure of 971 which obtained the preceding year.

Carrick-on-Suir is the second largest town in Tipperary South Riding. It is ideally placed to benefit from its proximity to both the gateway location of Waterford city and the nearby county town of Clonmel where IDA Ireland is concentrating its marketing campaign to attract overseas companies to the region. An example of this is the announcement in May 2004 by Guidant Corporation of a 1,000-person job expansion at its Clonmel plant, with jobs expected to come on stream from 2005 to 2010.

lDA Ireland also has a five-acre site in Carrick-on-Suir and this is in the process of being sold to South Tipperary County Council. It is anticipated that the council, perhaps in partnership with local interests, will develop the site to help generate economic activity in the town.

The Government's strategy for achieving a better regional distribution of overseas mobile investment away from the larger urban centres, such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, is to ensure that companies have credible alternatives which meet their demands in developing first-class business locations. These include infrastructure with easy access to international airports, larger population centres with a strong base of third level graduates, and the availability of high quality business and technology parks with attractive offices and industrial buildings. This strategy is also supported by South Tipperary County Council, which believes economic activity in the county needs to be prioritised in Clonmel, where it will be possible to develop and achieve a first-class business location and cluster development in the life sciences industry.

On south Tipperary, the strategy for attracting inward investment includes focusing on the growth sectors of international services, health care and pharmaceuticals. In addition, the information and communications sector is likely to have potential for the county in the medium and longer term. IDA Ireland is also working with existing clients in the area to encourage further expansion and new activities. In addition to Guidant, these include Pall Corporation, ALZA and Merck Sharpe & Dohme.

Enterprise Ireland also continues to promote job creation in south Tipperary. Its job creation activity is focused on the creation of new jobs through supporting entrepreneurs setting up new high-potential start-up companies, the retention and creation of new jobs in existing companies and enhancing the innovation capability of Ireland at national and regional levels through support for research in companies and third level institutions.

Enterprise Ireland works with companies to assist them grow their sales and exports and improve innovation so they can compete in world markets. The agency is encouraging companies to adopt new technologies to add value to their products and processes. In the past three years, Enterprise Ireland has made payments of over €4.5 million to client companies in south Tipperary to assist them with development projects.

The local county enterprise board and the county development board have a very important role to play in addressing industrial development in Carrick-on-Suir. I understand that last October the south Tipperary county manager set up a working group to deal with unemployment issues in Carrick-on-Suir. The purpose of this group is to prepare a development plan for the area.

The Minister is of the view that further initiatives regarding job creation should be taken under the auspices of the county development board, with which the industrial development agencies are already involved. This would be in line with the position adopted in other areas of the country. In recent years, we have steered away from establishing task forces and, in keeping with this policy, it is not proposed to establish the specific task force referred to by the Deputy on this occasion.

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