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

I know where Deputy Eugene Murphy's concern is coming from but if he thinks about it, the chief executive and the board of the companies involved decide where they want to go. IDA Ireland encourages them. I myself have encouraged companies that I have met to go to regional towns not too far from many of the towns Deputy Murphy mentioned.

The LEOs in Roscommon supported the creation of 704 jobs last year, EI supported 1,688 and IDA Ireland 985. I would love to be here saying to the Deputy it was 9,995 but the reality is the chief executive and directors of the board - many of whom are in the US because 130,000 of the 150,000 FDI jobs in the country come from the US - make those decisions in the US with IDA Ireland. As I say, I have been at some of those meetings and I have heard IDA Ireland push - I myself have pushed - to try and land those jobs in regional areas but there are reasons why they do not.

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