Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Not even the Minister could deny that there is a two-tier recovery afoot. The quarterly national household survey shows that 63% of all employment gains in the 12 months to the end of the second quarter of 2016 were in the greater Dublin area. A breakdown of the figures shows that in the midland region there was a gain of 1.07%, in the west, 3.02%, in the south west, 4.27%, and in the mid west, 9.3%. They are quite small. In addition, 43% of all Industrial Development Authority, IDA, site visits in the first six months of 2016 were in the capital. Ten counties had two or fewer site visits in the first six months of this year whereas Dublin had 145 site visits. How does the Minister intend to achieve the 2020 regional jobs target of 135,000 new jobs outside the greater Dublin area?

See this speech in context