Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We need to engage on this too. More than 500,000 jobs have been created since this Government took office. Some 75% of those new jobs were created outside Dublin. The mantra for years was that it was all Dublin-based, IDA-created jobs. That is not the case any more. The Government has mandated the IDA to look to secure at least 50% of all new jobs outside of Dublin. Approximately 1,800 IDA-client companies are directly employing more than 300,000 people in Ireland for the second consecutive year. More than half of these are outside Dublin, which demonstrates the scale of the contribution of foreign direct investment to Ireland. The whole agenda and policy is to regionalise that FDI footprint throughout the country and provide more jobs in rural and regional Ireland in terms of IDA activity. Investment in the west and Border regions has been consistent over the past five years. Again, employment in counties Donegal, Sligo, Mayo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Galway increased by 18% between 2018 and 2022.

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