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

The ongoing aim of the Action Plan for Jobs is to support enterprise growth and job creation in all regions of the country and in all towns and cities. Recent CSO data show that the number at work has increased by 33,500 in the past 12 months. Compared to a situation where the private sector was losing 7,000 jobs per month, we are now creating 2,800 jobs per month.

Looking at the live register, in the past 12 months 143,000 people left the live register to take up work and the nationwide Pathways to Work initiative aims to support that. In all of those regions of which the Deputy speaks, the live register figure is falling. It is falling in the Border region, the midlands and the west, and when one goes down to individual towns, it is also falling. We are making progress. The general policy has been to support business on a wide basis, with, for instance, the low rate of VAT, the abolition of the travel tax, the access to finance measures, the online trading measures, the reforms in company law and the reforms in income tax. These all are aimed at improving the business environment in towns and cities across the country.

As I have already said, the new structure of 31 local enterprise offices is now in place. They are aimed specifically at the smaller business start-up, to support those and act as a first-stop shop so that anyone seeking to create an enterprise in those towns the Deputy mentioned have access to a full range of supports.

On top of that, this year we will introduce a regional framework for enterprise strategy in each region to try to build off the competitive advantage that those regions have. We will be looking at such matters as the community enterprise centres as an asset in those regions to see how we can we sweat to deliver better value and create new opportunities. I assure the Deputy that we are working actively to seek to create the best possible environment for towns and cities to grow and support the enterprises within them.

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