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

Each regional action plan for jobs targets one of eight regions around the country, seeking to build on the differing capabilities and strengths of each region. West Cork comes under the south west action plan for jobs, which covers counties Cork and Kerry and was launched in July 2015. As of quarter three, the south-west region unemployment rate had dropped to 6.4%, from a high of 14.3% in 2012. The downturn in employment hit the south west heavily in 2008 but there is potential to grow sustainable jobs based on the sectoral strengths, skills profile and innovative capacity within this region.

As part of the Action Plan for Jobs 2017, my Department, through Enterprise Ireland, has committed to support all eight regional action plans for jobs and to provide investment of up to €60 million over the period to 2020 to support collaborative approaches to boost enterprise and job creation across the regions. The regional competitive funding initiative will be launched shortly.  It will be aimed at accelerating economic recovery in every part of the country by delivering on the potential of local and regional strengths. The number of jobs created by Enterprise Ireland in County Cork in 2015 was 1,443 and in 2016 it was 1,505. The number of jobs created by the Industrial Development Agency, IDA, in 2016 was 1,675.

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