Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am surprised by the Deputy's comments. A 20% increase in employment in IDA Ireland companies is a good performance in my book. It probably exceeds the performance achieved in most, if not all, other counties. It is a strong performance. I agree that we continually need to examine our strategy and IDA Ireland will undertake an indepth analysis of our FDI strategy to inform its formulation for the period after 2014. We continually examine the sectors in which we can seize opportunities. As the Deputy will have noted, earlier in the week I launched our strategy for manufacturing which has the capacity to have a better regional spread. If one examines the make-up of IDA Ireland investments in recent times, there is no doubt that the investments being attracted are in sectors in which there are very deep labour market pools. There is a focus on urban centres, but there is also a real opportunity to develop existing and new sectors. Manufacturing is a sector that has further potential which we will be examining, but one cannot pick out one county and say, for example, that one has a strategy for County Donegal. We need to have a strategy for Ireland to win foreign investment and then we need to position the regions to have a competitive advantage whereby they can win investors. That is the approach and we will certainly actively continue to market County Donegal and position our overall policy to create employment in foreign owned companies.

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