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

I thank both Deputies for raising this issue. Part of the response to our employment crisis lies with the IDA, but much of it lies elsewhere. The overall picture is worth stating both in respect of Kerry and the midlands. In Kerry during the crash the live register increased by 10,000. Many of those came from the construction sector which completely collapsed. Since the Government started to address those problems, the live register has fallen by almost 3,500 in Kerry.

In the past three years, the number of people employed in IDA companies in Kerry has increased by 24%. It is one of the very strongly performing counties in terms of IDA growth. While it is a small part of the overall picture in Kerry, as in many parts of the country, it is showing a healthy growth in employment. If the Deputy is seeking to assess IDA activity fairly, he should not look at site visits alone. Kerry is a good case in point, where the IDA has succeeded in getting much of its existing base to grow employment. That is a significant achievement.

As the Deputies know, I am committed to improving the performance of every region. I have committed to putting an advance facility in Tralee because Kerry has the strength to win new investment. This is a vote of confidence in the combination Tralee offers, in particular with the institute of technology and the base of companies. We are confident that we can grow employment there.

The case of the midlands is similar and there is more work to be done in that regard. That is why we have committed to two advance facilities in the case of the midlands as part of our new regional strategy. In the difficult times, some 20,000 extra people went on the live register in the midlands, while in the past three years that has come down by 4,000, so we are making headway.

As regards the midlands and Kerry, however, only 3% of overall employment is in IDA companies. Some 97% of employment is not in IDA companies. If the Deputies want a serious regional strategy to respond to the challenges of the regions, therefore, one must look not only at the 3% but also at the 97%. At the heart of our regional strategy is not just the investment we are making in advance facilities in the regions in order that they can be a magnet for new investment by the IDA, but also the fact that we want to grow our own companies. Both in Kerry and the midlands, one sees strong performance among Irish-owned export companies, which is what we need to build upon.

I have just announced a regional enterprise strategy, part of which is a call to local organisations, businesses and enterprise centres to collaborate with one another and come up with ideas that can drive employment in the regions. There will be a series of calls representing a potential investment of €100 million by the State. It is a great opportunity and a challenge for the regions to come forward with ideas to grow their own enterprise base. It may be in food, medical devices or ICT because various sectors have strength, so we need to build off our existing base.

The Government recognises that we are making headway through the Action Plan for Jobs. We are seeing growth in every single region of the country, but we need to maximise the potential. We are doing so partly through the advance facilities which are a magnet to new outside investment. It is more important, however, to provide an opportunity for collaboration in coming up with new ideas to drive enterprise growth. I invite both Deputies to participate in the forthcoming regional stakeholder meetings where people can come forward with the best ideas in order to develop them.

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