Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

I welcome the opportunity to address this issue with the Minister; I note the Taoiseach is sitting beside him. I welcome the announcement of the €250 million fund to bring jobs to the regions but I want to highlight that the regions have been doing very badly. The region I am located in, the midlands, and County Laois in particular, has been on the back foot. I raised this issue with the Minister three years ago and I have attended meetings with him in regard to the issue, along with other Deputies.

In 2014, not one overseas investor was brought to County Laois, and in the last three years only one such investor has been brought to the county. Last year, only nine IDA-backed jobs were created in the county, while 28 jobs were lost in IDA-backed companies. In total, there are only 87 people working in IDA-backed companies in County Laois. I know County Kildare is slightly bigger but there are more than 10,000 people working in IDA-backed companies there. While most of them are in the northern part of the county, the southern half, including Monasterevin, has not been getting its fair share.

County Leitrim has almost eight times more people working in IDA-backed companies than Laois, despite the fact that the latter county has nearly three times the population. This matter is not confined to IDA-backed firms. Some 951 people are working in Irish export companies in County Laois. Every one of those jobs is welcome, but Laois is second from the bottom of the league in that respect.

We were told we needed to have infrastructure, services and trained personnel. County Laois has the infrastructure, services, motorways, rail connections and facilities to provide a good quality of life, including leisure centres. We even have golf courses for executives to play on.

Brian Walsh (Galway West, Independent)
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I must ask the Deputy to conclude his remarks, please.

Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I cannot understand what the problem is. Perhaps the Minister can address that issue concerning the midlands region and County Laois in particular.

Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister is well aware, there is a disparity in job creation for rural communities, including peripheral areas such as my county of Kerry, and north Kerry in particular. That disparity has been alarming and shocking. Given the economic downturn as a result of the recession, the knock-on effect has been quite catastrophic. While there was an improvement in many areas throughout last summer and well into the autumn, the last quarter of 2014 saw a downward turn in Kerry with a 4.5% increase in unemployment. That is quite startling. I am told that the live register rose again in January.

The Minister will be aware of the hope and expectation surrounding the LNG project for north Kerry, which has been going on for seven or eight years. There is still no light at the end of the tunnel as to whether it will be realised and I understand the matter is currently before the courts.

Job creation is important for Kerry, as it is for other counties, but particularly so for a county with such a high unemployment rate. A total of 13,000 people are currently unemployed in County Kerry.

For its efforts, the IDA brought one potential investor to Kerry in 2012, two in 2013 and three last year. Nothing came out of these visits, however. By comparison, Cork had 95 visits in that period, while Limerick had 74. That puts things in perspective as to how far down the pecking order Kerry is in terms of the Government's commitment to the county for IDA-backed investment and jobs. I would like the Minister to address that issue. I understand that a new IDA building has been earmarked for the Tralee technology park, and I welcome that. Having said that, however, we still need jobs urgently.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank both Deputies for raising this issue. Part of the response to our employment crisis lies with the IDA, but much of it lies elsewhere. The overall picture is worth stating both in respect of Kerry and the midlands. In Kerry during the crash the live register increased by 10,000. Many of those came from the construction sector which completely collapsed. Since the Government started to address those problems, the live register has fallen by almost 3,500 in Kerry.

In the past three years, the number of people employed in IDA companies in Kerry has increased by 24%. It is one of the very strongly performing counties in terms of IDA growth. While it is a small part of the overall picture in Kerry, as in many parts of the country, it is showing a healthy growth in employment. If the Deputy is seeking to assess IDA activity fairly, he should not look at site visits alone. Kerry is a good case in point, where the IDA has succeeded in getting much of its existing base to grow employment. That is a significant achievement.

As the Deputies know, I am committed to improving the performance of every region. I have committed to putting an advance facility in Tralee because Kerry has the strength to win new investment. This is a vote of confidence in the combination Tralee offers, in particular with the institute of technology and the base of companies. We are confident that we can grow employment there.

The case of the midlands is similar and there is more work to be done in that regard. That is why we have committed to two advance facilities in the case of the midlands as part of our new regional strategy. In the difficult times, some 20,000 extra people went on the live register in the midlands, while in the past three years that has come down by 4,000, so we are making headway.

As regards the midlands and Kerry, however, only 3% of overall employment is in IDA companies. Some 97% of employment is not in IDA companies. If the Deputies want a serious regional strategy to respond to the challenges of the regions, therefore, one must look not only at the 3% but also at the 97%. At the heart of our regional strategy is not just the investment we are making in advance facilities in the regions in order that they can be a magnet for new investment by the IDA, but also the fact that we want to grow our own companies. Both in Kerry and the midlands, one sees strong performance among Irish-owned export companies, which is what we need to build upon.

I have just announced a regional enterprise strategy, part of which is a call to local organisations, businesses and enterprise centres to collaborate with one another and come up with ideas that can drive employment in the regions. There will be a series of calls representing a potential investment of €100 million by the State. It is a great opportunity and a challenge for the regions to come forward with ideas to grow their own enterprise base. It may be in food, medical devices or ICT because various sectors have strength, so we need to build off our existing base.

The Government recognises that we are making headway through the Action Plan for Jobs. We are seeing growth in every single region of the country, but we need to maximise the potential. We are doing so partly through the advance facilities which are a magnet to new outside investment. It is more important, however, to provide an opportunity for collaboration in coming up with new ideas to drive enterprise growth. I invite both Deputies to participate in the forthcoming regional stakeholder meetings where people can come forward with the best ideas in order to develop them.

Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for his reply. He outlined the midlands as a whole, but that region is not outperforming anywhere else. It is lagging behind overall. In Westmeath, for example, 285 new jobs were created in IDA-backed client companies last year, whereas there were nine in Laois. In 2012, there was none in Laois but 177 in Westmeath. I am not picking on Westmeath, but I am trying to show the regional disparity that exists.

I welcome the regional strategy and the fact that €100 million is being made available for it. I am interested in encouraging people to become involved in utilising it, but a concerted effort is required in County Laois to get industry up and running. According to all the figures, we are lagging way behind. I understand that €150 million of the €250 million fund is for capital works and putting in advance facilities. I therefore ask the Minister to consider County Laois in that regard.

In his opening remarks, the Minister said he was considering two advance facility projects.

I ask the Minister to clarify what he has in mind in that regard. The business park on the Mountrath Road has one unit, which is now in operation. There are no other facilities and the county is badly in need of advance facilities. We have the business parks but they do not have the factories or offices in them. I ask the Minister to consider towns such as Portlaoise, Portarlington, Mountmellick, Mountrath and Rathdowney. The land is available and the local authority is also anxious to get these projects up and running.

Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for his response. He rightly said that the construction sector took a major hit because many, predominantly young, people went into various aspects of that sector. He referred to a fall in the live register in Kerry of 3,500 since then. Most of those 3,500 have emigrated. Most young people I know have gone to America, Australia and England to seek employment because they were all involved in the construction sector.

Much of Kerry is coastal and fishing ports such as Dingle, Portmagee and Fenit have also been decimated. I agree with what the Minister said about collaboration on job creation programmes. All of us should work together to try to bring investment into the county. We should do everything in our power to develop local SMEs and so forth to help to reduce further the problem of unemployment.

Peripheral regions, particularly coastal ones, suffer more. Places such as Donegal are faced with similar issues. There should be positive discrimination towards trying to bring potential investors into the county in order to address a blatant unemployment imbalance per head of population.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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We need to have a realistic debate about what we can do. IDA Ireland does not decide where an industry locates. An industry locates in areas where it can get the things it needs to grow. Very often for multinational companies, that will centre on education and the skill base. That is why the institutes of technology in Tralee and Athlone are the magnets. They are what are needed for multinational investment in a region.

However, there are many engineering companies. As a dairy master, Deputy Martin Ferris knows Dairygold which is a fantastic company. It is the sort of company we need to grow. Keenan's is a great company in the midlands. There are many such companies and those are the ones we need to grow to scale. It is not that someone in IDA Ireland sits in an office and decides it will be Kerry, Laois or somewhere else. It must build off the resources and promote each region with the magnets that can pull in the investors. It is committing to two advance facilities in Athlone, one already under construction and another for 2017. That is to build out that centre, but the regional strategy will consider the whole area. In some areas it is not multinationals and the food sector or the engineering sector may be the one we should be growing in certain regions. Combilift, a fantastic company in Monaghan, has gone completely global.

When considering regional strategy, it is necessary to look much more broadly than simply at a measure such as site visits, which is not a fair representation. Of all the employment in Laois or Kerry, IDA Ireland companies only represent 3% of employment. It is necessary to look at the entire enterprise base to determine the assets and opportunities we have. That is the concept behind the regional enterprise strategy. We need to look at our assets and opportunities and then get actions in behind them to drive those forward. That is the only way to develop a successful regional strategy. That is what I am working at.

I accept that international companies have a role to play, but critically the other 97% must have a role to play. Deputies need to look at that 97% to see what can make them grow and perform to higher standards. What can make them go international? Can we, through the local authorities, the education and training boards, and the institutes of technology, create a better environment for them to grow? That is what we are trying to do through this regional enterprise strategy. I would welcome the participation of the Deputies and the organisations in the regions to come up with the best ideas and try to put them into effect.