Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on this timely motion. I will focus on a couple of particular points.

I am really excited that there seems to be a proactive role being taken by the local enterprise offices, which have been given more of an economic development role in terms of working with Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland and which have been challenged to do so by the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, and his officials in order to come up with development plans for the region.

I and others have called for the Government to focus on what was happening in rural areas. We were delighted to see the boost of job creation from foreign direct investment coming into the cities and larger towns, but we want to see that rolling out across the country. I am really looking forward to the Minister announcing actions for the midlands region, which is the first pilot region identified.

In terms of what jobs are being created, often we focus on the foreign direct investment which gets significant coverage on RTE and in other media, but what is going on our own communities is really exciting as well. If one looks at what Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs are doing, for example, in Offaly, the welcome information we got recently was that the LEO had contributed to the creation of 300 jobs but there is nobody carrying lengthy programmes about that. I want to see Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs more regularly letting the public know what is going on with the amount of companies they support locally.

I have in mind indigenous companies like Grant Engineering and Glenisk, innovative dynamic companies there for the long haul. They are based in their communities and they want to stay there. These are the companies on which we should also be focusing.

Fine Gael has a Standing Up for Small Business campaign which is fantastic. We will be talking to people, in the context of the surveys we want to conduct, to see what they really want. Others have touched on various points but I see that I have run out of time.

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