Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I will take him up on ConnectIreland, which is a fantastic project. Mr. Terry Clune and Mr. Tom Dowling have done good work in that regard. It has potential.

The difficulty lies in the fact that, given the visitation figures, there is a danger of a two-speed recovery. I accept that there is employment growth, but there is no sense in us concentrating that growth in specific parts of the country and not giving other parts that opportunity. Longford, which fits many of the criteria that the Minister mentioned, such as commuting areas, has received no visits since the beginning of 2012. The Minister referred to commuting distances, yet Carlow, Kildare, Meath, Wexford and Wicklow have received only one IDA site visit each this year. There are locations on the outskirts of Dublin that meet many of the criteria required by any international company. The figure of 275 visits so far this year is healthy. However, unless they are spread around areas outside of Dublin and other cities we will not achieve the full recovery that we need.

The most recent annual employment survey by Forfás shows that employment in agency-assisted companies in the north west decreased by more than 20% in the past nine years. There has been a further 1% reduction since the Government entered office. We need to start using regional centres. They tick all of the boxes that the Minister just outlined. The Department must push the IDA on what has been done in Longford. I cannot imagine that Deputy Bannon is keeping quiet on the matter. Just to save himself from that alone, the Minister should put a bit of pressure on the IDA to adopt a greater regional focus.

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