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

As I said, IDA and Enterprise Ireland numbers are collected by way of a survey of those companies and they will not be available until later in the year. The survey results from the CSO, which has nothing to do with my Department but which were published yesterday, cover groups of counties. It does not break it down by county. However, the Border region, which includes County Donegal, saw an increase of 9,500 people at work, which is a considerable reversal of previous trends. In the previous 12 months, figures showed a decline of more than 12,000. The trend in the Border region has been very significantly turned around in the past 12 months.

The IDA seeks to continuously develop new and existing business. Approximately 70% of all IDA projects come from expansions. The Letterkenny Institute of Technology has been particularly successful in building an interconnection with those companies I mentioned, namely, Pramerica, UnitedHealth and Zeus, and they have been continually expanding, which is encouraging.

There has also been an encouraging flow of site visits which is the lead indicator of new projects coming to County Donegal. It is an area which has considerable potential and I can assure the Deputy that we will continue to work on it. It has been helped by project Kelvin which, effectively, gives not only competitive but international telecom links which are as good as anywhere in Ireland.

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