Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the opportunity to address this matter with the Minister. I raise it because of the low number of visits to Laoighis-Offaly by companies invited here by IDA Ireland. The figures are actually unbelievable and astounding. I have raised this locally and regionally with IDA Ireland. I welcome the fact that the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton, is present. He will recall my raising this in his office last year with representatives of industry and commerce from Laoighis-Offaly, the county manager and other Deputies. The taxpayers of Laois and Offaly are wondering what is happening in regard to their contribution to the IDA Ireland's budget of €86 million, which I understand is its allocation. Given the number of visits to countiesd Laois and Offaly last year, one wonders how such a cost arises. If the NRA and Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport stopped funding roads in the area, the people of counties Laois and Offaly would not be expected to pay road tax.

The figures are absolutely astounding. In the past three years there have been but two IDA Ireland-organised visits to County Laois by prospective companies.

There have not been any visits so far in 2012. There were two in the entire three year period in County Laois. County Offaly has had nine visits: seven in 2010, one in 2011 and one so far in 2012, yet Laois has had only two. In the same period Dublin had 484 visits. I understand that the capital city would have more visits as it is a large population area but Laois-Offaly should have had more than two. There is a major discrepancy in that regard. I understand IDA Ireland's budget is €86 million, which is a huge amount of money, and those of us in Laoighiss-Offaly are wondering about our part of that.

There are huge opportunities in Laoighiss-Offaly There are enterprise centres and vacant IDA Ireland premises across the counties in Portlaoise, Mountrath, Mountmellick, Portarlington, Birr, Edenderry and Tullamore. To take Portarlington alone, there is a huge Avon factory in Portarlington mainly under the control of NAMA because of the current position. There is a huge opportunity there and I know NAMA and other interested parties would like to see that used for something more purposeful. I ask the Minister to give his attention to that.

Regarding the jobless figures in the two counties, there are 17,856 people on the live register in both counties. That is a huge number of people who are unemployed. Myself and other local representatives have tried to highlight that and to seek ways to improve the situation.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy must conclude.

Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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The local authorities in both counties are making substantial efforts in providing enterprise centres and other incentives to attract people to locate in the area.

Where is the accountability of IDA Ireland in this matter? The taxpayers in Laoighiss-Offaly want to know who is responsible. I have heard all the flaky answers from IDA Ireland and others. The Minister is relatively new in the job. I want to know what is being done to get IDA Ireland to ensure there is proper regional development.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. As he rightly pointed out, Deputy Charles Flanagan organised a delegation to my office recently to discuss this very issue. We went through in some detail the challenges and where we might seek opportunities in this area.

As the Deputy acknowledged in his question, the difficulty of getting IDA Ireland activity in the counties of Laois and Offaly has been a huge challenge for many years. This problem did not arise today or yesterday. The structure of employment in Laoighis-Offaly is that approximately 4,000 people are employed in indigenously owned companies while 800 people are employed in IDA foreign owned companies. We need to build on our enterprise base. There is no doubt that in recent times the manufacturing base of foreign owned companies, and it has been predominantly manufacturing within Laois-Offaly, has been under severe attrition throughout the country and there have been difficulties in the manufacturing sectors whether foreign or Irish owned.

Manufacturing is a key priority within enterprise policy and one of the things I have done since taking office is to establish a manufacturing development forum to set out a strategic vision for 2020, not just for foreign owned companies but also for indigenous owned companies which, in the case of Laoighis-Offaly, are a far greater proportion of the employment base. We must recognise that there are opportunities in manufacturing. It has been too easily allowed slide from the national focus of enterprise policy.

I am taking other steps to help drive increasing activity from our industrial base and employment opportunities across the country. These include the launch of the new potential exporters division in Enterprise Ireland to support more indigenous companies trade in foreign markets; Enterprise Ireland's lean business offer which enables manufacturing clients to improve productivity; the launch of the development capital scheme aimed at indigenously owned companies which are finding it difficult to grow to scale and expand into export markets; and the improvement in the research and development scheme. There is a good deal of activity going on seeking to build our broad indigenous engine of growth.

In terms of the challenge for IDA Ireland, when I go on IDA Ireland trade missions leading corporations are seeking pools of highly qualified talent in very substantial number. That is the difficulty we face. Increasingly, they are looking at areas where there are many companies in similar sectors already established. The Deputy will be aware that increasingly the profile of IDA Ireland wins we are seeking are in areas of information technology, research and development and in the pharmaceutical sector. They are activities that tend to be drawn to magnets where there is already a substantial presence in those clusters. That is what poses the challenge for regional policy. Effective regional policy will have to rely on indigenous development as well as multinationals.

The Deputy asked where the money goes from the €86 million. It is true that the strategy is designed to create 62,000 jobs in 640 investments.

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Minister's time has concluded.

Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for his reply. I welcome that manufacturing is getting priority, and the Minister mentioned in particular the research and development credit scheme.

Regarding the pools of qualified talent, there would not be a shortage of those in the midlands. It is easy to get to an area from a commuter point of view because of improved motorway and rail links, which was one of the reasons given in the past for holding it back. I ask the Minister to speak to the IDA Ireland about having a flexible approach to the midlands, particularly towards some of the empty units I mentioned such as the Avon factory in Portarlington, the IDA Ireland factories in Portlaoise and Birr, and the other centres and to impress on it the need for balanced regional development. Everybody would agree on that. There are pressures on water and other resources in Dublin but we do not have the same level of pressure in the Midlands. There is a good road network in place. There are good facilities which are ready to have the key turned in them. That is the key point. Smaller units can be used in clusters. On the day we met the Minister I discussed the question of companies that want to expand and start a new operation in the Midlands in that some of those smaller units could be used for that. I urge the Minister to use his good offices to keep the pressure on IDA Ireland to have that focus on balanced regional development, and particularly to ensure the midlands does not continue to be ignored by IDA Ireland.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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IDA Ireland has significant property development in the midlands and it continues to press that as a location in the context of gateway development. Obviously, the midlands is part of a wider gateway network.

In addition to that specific IDA Ireland activity, there is also Connect Ireland which is developed through a private company but is essentially a link seeking to find people who will invest in Ireland and using connector fees to do that. That is a source of job creation which is likely to have a much better regional spread. We are hopeful that initiative will see a broader spread of activity.

The Deputy is right to highlight the short and good communications. A significant decision was the decision of PayPal, having originally invested in Dublin, to have its expansion in Dundalk. It moved from a Dublin location to a Border, midlands and western, BMW, location where it had the confidence, having been established, that it could get the supply it needed and it had the communication connections. Expansions of that nature present an opportunity for achieving better regional spread.

I meet IDA Ireland regularly. We are seeking to promote regional spread but it is not our Department or the IDA which ultimately decides where companies locate. They decide that against their criteria. It is not a question of Portlaoise competing with Dublin; it is a question of Ireland competing with the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Singapore. That is the competition IDA Ireland predominantly faces, and the Deputy must understand that to understand the difficulty we are facing.

We have to have a broader regional strategy rather than simply looking at IDA Ireland as being the driver. I will continue to emphasise to IDA Ireland, as the Deputy asked, the importance of seeking to meet the target of 50% of investment outside Dublin and Cork. It is a core part of the agency’s mandate but one that is increasingly difficult to achieve.