Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The figures I gave on the south east are positive figures. I stated that in the south east, 15,580 people were employed across 76 IDA Ireland companies in 2018. That is positive.

The Deputy is lucky to have the financial services down in that area as well. I wish we had more of them in my own area. This is an area where we are getting many new companies in as a result of Brexit and where many of our trade missions are focusing as well. Wexford's own Minister, the Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, is in charge of that area and he has done many trade missions in that area of financial technology, FinTech, services.

Deputy Browne talked about the region. Regions, for us, are really important. Only last Monday, in Cavan, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, launched a new round worth €45 million for the regional enterprise development scheme. It is a very important scheme. In the south east alone, €10 million was secured under the two completed calls, which involved €60 million in total. This is the way the south east needs to move forward here.

It is not all about IDA Ireland jobs. It is all about indigenous jobs, microenterprise jobs.

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