Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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As the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is aware, the IDA last year had a record breaking year in terms of job creation, with a net figure of almost 6,000 jobs created. This is not the first time the Minister will have heard somebody from Waterford try to hold the IDA to account and it will not be the last because, unfortunately, for all the good that is in the recent report, it makes very poor reading for the south east, the only region of the country to see a marked decline in terms of job creation through IDA initiatives. This drop of 8.2% translates to in excess of 1,000 jobs, a figure that is nothing to be scoffed at for Waterford city and the south-east region, which has a current unemployment rate of 20%.

There has been a lot of rhetoric about this high unemployment rate in the south east. The reality is there are people and families behind these figures who find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. What I want to know, and I have asked the same of the IDA, is whether exit interviews are being conducted with prospective investors. What is it that Waterford and the south east is lacking that other regions seem to have in abundance? If exit interviews are not being conducted, why not? Can we develop a policy to ensure that, as a Government, we have the information we need to make the best decisions to ensure something both parties promised in the run-up to the election, namely, balanced regional development?

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Conway for raising this issue. She is correct that the IDA had a record year last year, with 13,000 jobs and a net expansion of 6,000 jobs. It was the highest job creation rate in a decade and the lowest rate of job loss in a decade, and that pattern is being continued into the first half of this year.

The Deputy is also right in saying that the south east is an area that has not shared in that success, and a number of responses are necessary to try to reverse that. Part of the problem is that the pattern of IDA gains in recent times has seen a move towards very high end types of project and that has favoured the very large cities with very deep labour pools and strong and established centres. Undoubtedly, that has favoured Cork, Dublin and Galway. They have built bases in clusters and they are seeing the product of that. They act as magnets.

The challenge for us in Waterford is to seek to build an equivalent cluster of strength around the existing base within Waterford. As the Deputy is aware, I have established a south-east action plan in recognition of the particular structural problems in Waterford. We have got all the key agencies around the table, including the local authorities and the Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT. It is a question of identifying the competitive strengths and how we build those. We had a successful review meeting there recently as a result of which a number of sectoral opportunities will now be focused on, and we will seek to develop those. To be fair, WIT has a strong base in technology across telecommunications, pharmaceutical and ICT for us to build upon.

I have given a direction to our agencies to give renewed emphasis to the south east, and one of the products of that is that so far this year the number of site visits to the south east have doubled. Enterprise Ireland has had a competition for new start-ups, and I attended one of the sessions with the 20 individuals who were successful in responding to a competitive start fund. Enterprise Ireland is working intensively with those as high potential new start-ups.

There is no doubt that regional spread will be an increasing challenge because of the type of companies IDA Ireland is winning, and in trying to achieve a greater regional spread, IDA Ireland is now targeting emerging companies, not just the iconic names. It is now looking at companies that are considering their very first move out of, say, the United States to come to Ireland. We have had 11 of those so far and they will be much better prospects for getting regional spread.

The other initiative is ConnectIreland which, as the Deputy is aware, is being conducted with the assistance of a company based in the south east that is aiming to use the diaspora or anyone with connections to attract companies to consider Ireland. More than 200,000 companies come to Europe each year and most of them would not have Ireland on their radar because IDA Ireland would not be working at that level. An impressive example is that 3,500 Irish accountants are working in multinationals across the United States. That is a huge group of people whom we can use as ambassadors.

We have set a target for IDA Ireland of 50% outside of Dublin and Cork. It did not come anywhere near that in 2011; it was only 28%. This year so far we are showing much better. It is closer to the 50% target, although not quite at it, but I would have to admit that the south east continues to be a challenge. We are working on it. We have had a six months review. We will continue to have those meetings. We set targets that we seek to achieve, and we are examining the reason companies are leaving. By and large, it is not always a great guide. It is not that Waterford is doing something wrong. Companies reach the end of their cycle. I am not sure looking at those who are leaving is the best source of information. We are trying to examine the competitive strengths of the region and build on that. However, I will ask IDA Ireland to examine if there is a pattern to the companies which have left in the past two years to determine if there is a diagnostic from that on which we could build based on what the Deputy is suggesting.

Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for his response. He may have misunderstood me. I welcome that there has been a notable increase in the number of companies that have visited Waterford but are questions asked when prospective investors do not choose Waterford rather than the reason people are leaving? I can understand that macroeconomic issues can arise that impact on a company's decision to move or whatever, but in terms of the issue I raise, we have seen a huge increase in the number of IDA site visits to Waterford. However, they have not yielded any results. With the greatest respect, one can bring a horse to water but one cannot make it drink, and we need to know why they are not drinking because we need a significant investment in employment in Waterford and in the south east as a region.

There were some positives from IDA Ireland's report on Waterford, including Bausch & Lomb's investment in continued production and the loyalty that company has shown to the city over the years. Also, Genzyme is making a significant investment. Two weeks ago, I and a number of other Oireachtas Members visited GSK in Dungarvan which employs 700 people.

The companies in Waterford must be brought into the fold in terms of trade missions to allow them drum up more business for themselves and perhaps expand and secure the jobs we have already in Waterford. A vital part of the south-east task force would be to ensure those companies which are there remain.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I take the point. I will ask for that to be done in that we will examine the reason companies ultimately choose to locate elsewhere. Very often it is not Waterford competing with Limerick. It is Ireland, or Waterford, if it is the preferred location, competing with Scotland.

Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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I know that.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The issues are to do with what many of these companies are now looking for, namely, ICT skills and language skills. There may not be the same depth of skill base in Waterford compared with some of the competing locations. In other areas we have Genzyme, on the pharmaceutical side, and we use established companies as the main reference sale. It is people who have come here and been successful in a region who become the reference sale. To be fair, Eistec, which replaced TalkTalk, is in a class of its own. It may be an Irish-owned company but it is a quality company and I am optimistic about its prospects. It will be a very good reference point in the future.

On foot of the Deputy's suggestion, we will examine the visits that do not succeed to determine if there is a pattern to those, but there are structural problems in terms of many of them. The Deputy knows them also. Many issues have arisen, some infrastructural and some to do with the knowledge infrastructure, and there are a number of issues enterprise policy alone cannot address. It was recognised in the south-east action plan that we must examine elements of the development of the region other than simply what we can do within enterprise policy.

I will take note of what the Deputy said. We will use that to see if we can analyse more closely the items we might be able to tweak in our promotion, but I reassure the Deputy of our continuing commitment. We recognise that this is an area where we have not been as successful as we would have liked, and we will continue to persist.