Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Penrose and Troy for raising this matter. I have had telephone calls form Senator Gabrielle McFadden and Deputy Burke on the same issue. Clearly, my first thoughts are with the 87 workers affected by this announcement. I am very conscious of the anxiety that the announcement creates for the workers and their families as well as the local community.

In regard to the employees concerned, Ireland has a robust suite of employment rights legislation that offers extensive protection to employees. The staff of the Workplace Relations Commission are available to meet the employees concerned, either individually or collectively, to discuss their employment rights. I urge the employees concerned to make contact with the commission.

I wish to clarify that the Government and I are not in a position to grant any financial aid to the company involved. The World Health Organization has a set of guidelines which state that because tobacco products are lethal, businesses producing them should not be granted incentives to run their operations. The circumstances here are unique to this sector and are not necessarily caused by any enterprise policy failure. It is an outcome of tougher regulations from our health sector to help protect our citizens' health. For this reason, Enterprise Ireland is not in a position to support the company concerned. In regard to providing assistance for the company concerned, I will make sure that Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland support the Westmeath region.

In terms of job creation in the midlands, and in Mullingar in particular, Enterprise Ireland supports entrepreneurs who are setting up start-up companies in manufacturing and internationally traded services. Enterprise Ireland is also focused on the creation of new jobs through continuing to work with established companies in its client portfolio in the midlands. In addition to marketing Mullingar and the midlands for new investment, IDA Ireland works with its existing client companies in the area with a view to encouraging them to grow and embed their business. IDA Ireland has been working towards targets set out in its strategy "Winning -Foreign Direct Investment 2015-2019". For the first time, ambitious investment targets have been set on a regional basis whereby the agency aims to increase the level of investment by between 30% and 40% in each region.

The work by Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland is part of a wider Government push to create employment across the regions. My Department has published eight regional action plans for jobs, including a plan for the midlands. The core objective of the action plan for jobs for the midland region is to support the creation of an extra 14,200 jobs by 2020 through the delivery of 119 actions focusing on increasing the number of start-ups and developing the capacity of existing enterprises. These actions include the establishment of a manufacturing technologies campus and a series of measures, delivered through Enterprise Ireland and the local enterprise offices, LEOs, to promote 25% more start-ups, including extra funding, mentoring programmes and new incubator space for entrepreneurs such as the Junction in Tullamore, which I visited recently.

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