Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome a number of developments in my county. I welcome the approval granted today by An Bord Pleanála to the massive development at the John Mitchel's-Austin Stack Park site in Tralee. This will bring a substantial injection of money into the local economy and will provide 500 jobs during the construction stage and up to 1,000 jobs in the longer term. I also welcome the approval of the Shannon LNG project on the Ballylongford-Tarbert landbank which, if given clearance, will create more than 600 jobs in the north Kerry region. This area was one of the hardest hit by people being laid off work on the island.

Unfortunately, the news on the jobs front in the past year has been very bleak. In the south west — counting Kerry, Limerick and Cork — the numbers on the live register increased from 34,145 in January 2008 to 47,804 last month. Kerry has experienced growth in unemployment of over 100%, from 6,500 to over 13,000. There has been a steady succession of major firms shedding jobs or closing down completely. One of those to do so was Amman which has announced that it is moving a large part of its production to Asia and has made 120 redundancies. Amman is a long-standing company that has been operating in Tralee.

While labour costs are often cited, especially by right wing economists and business groups, as the cause of Irish based companies losing competitiveness, Amman cited energy costs as having been the major factor in its decision. Those costs rose significantly in recent years with a 17.5% rise in electricity last year having perhaps been the straw that broke the camel's back. While the reason cited for the steady increases was the global rise in oil and gas, there has been a significant reversal of that trend. While the price of oil peaked at $145 per barrel in July 2008, it has since slipped back to under $40 per barrel. This reversal has been slow in being passed on to the consumer through forecourt sales and is yet to be reflected in the domestic prices for oil and gas. Where energy costs are seen to be a significant factor in hampering businesses, the energy regulator should be encouraged to intervene and force the providers to cut their prices to domestic and commercial consumers. In the case of households, this would make a significant contribution to combating fuel poverty while it would have the potential to save thousands of jobs.

Another aspect of the current economic crisis and of Government policy in recent years is the lack of emphasis on job creation through indigenous enterprise, particularly through smaller enterprises that have established solid foundations and links to the local economy, especially in rural areas. When hearing submissions for our report to the agriculture committee on farming and fishing in the west, I was struck by the fact that Leader had been responsible for creating more jobs in Kerry than IDA Ireland-supported firms and that Leader-supported enterprises had a 70% success rate. That is surely worth considering, given the massive job losses that we have seen in the multinational sector. While these are difficult times, we should concentrate on domestic resources, over which we have greater control, ensuring that existing jobs are preserved and indigenous enterprises are encouraged to expand and sustain employment.

Mary Wallace (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter on the Adjournment. The live register figures for January 2009 show increases in all regions. The largest percentage increase was in the mid-east and the smallest percentage increase was in the south east.

However, the live register is not designed to measure unemployment which is measured by the quarterly national household survey. The most recent survey was published by the Central Statistics Office on 21 November 2008 and whereas the unemployment rate for the country as a whole was 7%, the figure for the south west was 6.3%. Notwithstanding this, I am very concerned that the figure for the south west, like other regions, has been increasing. The recent job loss announcement at Dell in Limerick clearly has implications for workers living in the south west and County Kerry in particular.

The industrial development agencies and the county and city enterprise boards are responsible for job creation in the region. They are making every effort to create and sustain jobs. For workers who lose their jobs, the role of the employment and training agency, FÁS, is particularly important. All FÁS interventions and supports are aimed at assisting people to enhance their skills and enable them to secure employment in these difficult times.

As regards foreign direct investment, the locations that IDA Ireland focuses on in the region are the gateway city of Cork and the hub location of Mallow as well as the linked hubs of Tralee and Killarney. The agency's strategy for the region is to work with local authorities and relevant infrastructure and service providers to influence the delivery of appropriate infrastructure in the region. The strategy also progresses the development of a knowledge economy so that the region can compete nationally and internationally for foreign direct investment. This allows the agency to work with its existing client base and help them further develop their presence in the region while providing modern property solutions with supporting infrastructure.

Over the past ten years, direct employment in IDA Ireland-supported companies in Cork city and county has grown from 15,671 in 1999 to 21,068 in 2008. The sectors contributing to this growth are information and communication technologies, biopharmaceuticals and medical technologies, globally traded business and international financial services.

At the end of 2008 there were 15 IDA Ireland-supported companies in Kerry employing almost 1,800 people. In addition to attracting new foreign direct investment, IDA Ireland continues to work closely with its existing clients in Kerry to encourage them to expand their operations in the county. An example of this work was the announcement in September 2008 by Aetna in Castleisland that it was expanding its operation with the addition of 70 new jobs.

Enterprise Ireland also continues to foster job creation in the region. The agency is specifically targeting business start-ups through a number of supports and programmes. The agency also organises seminars and events to meet the needs of industry. For example, Enterprise Ireland is addressing the challenges facing the sub-supply base in the region with a dedicated sub-supplier event in April. This will facilitate supply companies exploring new opportunities, new business leads and new markets with assistance from the agency's overseas market network.

During 2008, the county and city enterprise boards in the region paid out more than €2 million in grant assistance to 167 projects. A total of 3,754 people participated in county enterprise board training and development programmes. The 2008 end-of-year figures for the south west show there are 5,600 jobs existing in county enterprise board-supported enterprises. These interventions have contributed to the development of sustainable local growth-orientated enterprises which continue to deliver high quality job creation. In 2009, the boards will continue to support enterprise development and job creation. The local base of each county enterprise board means the projects and related job opportunities they support are tailored specifically to the specific needs of the local economic environment.

These are very difficult and uncertain times for many workers both in the south west and elsewhere. However, I emphasise that the development agencies are making every effort to establish and sustain jobs and they will continue to do so.