Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will relay those concerns to the Minister and to the agencies concerned. I agree it is very important that our State agencies swing into action to support people in the difficult decisions they have to take and ensure they have the complete information they need to make an informed decision. I am not aware of the specifics about the claims department but I assure the Deputy I will relay those concerns to the Minister.

We have had a difficult few years in this country but we are back in business and the recovery is accelerating and it is important that we say we want to see a jobs recovery that is balanced across the country. Much of the evidence shows that the Border region, which includes my county, Louth, has been making significant progress in adding jobs and making significant reductions in the live register over the recent past. As recently as the third quarter of 2012 the unemployment rate in the region was 17.7% but by the first quarter of this year that had fallen to 10.2%, which is still high. We are working every day, might and main, to have full employment across the country and that includes across the regions. An additional 18,000 jobs have been put in place in the Border region and that is an impressive achievement.

Jobs in Government supported companies in Cavan, supported by the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the LEOs, have increased by 7% in recent years, following the crash. Ensuring that our regional jobs growth is accelerating across the country means that we must take discrete regional approaches. The Minister and I recently co-chaired a stakeholder forum in Carrickmacross for the Louth, Cavan and Monaghan areas to work with private industry and the public agencies in the Border region to identify sectoral opportunities for job creation that would be unique to the Cavan, Monaghan and Louth areas and the Border region in general. That was a very successful process. We intend to publish that plan in the autumn. It is one of eight regional action plans for jobs which we believe can deliver sustainable job growth for each and every region in the country, including the Border region which I and Deputy Smith represent.

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