Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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10. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if she will provide an update on regional IDA site visits and vacant properties in 2016; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6319/17]

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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I ask the Minister to provide an update on the regional IDA Ireland site visits and the vacant properties in 2016.

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Regional development is a top priority of mine and I am determined to help drive job creation all over Ireland. Increasing and sustaining foreign direct investment, FDI, outside of the main urban areas represents a vital part of this.

IDA Ireland's strategy for 2015-2019 includes a commitment to increase FDI in every region outside Dublin by 30%-40%. The 2016 results show that IDA Ireland is actively working towards this goal with 52% of all jobs created by the agency's clients last year based outside of Dublin. Site visit statistics also indicate that progress is being made towards this goal. In 2016, there were 638 IDA Ireland-sponsored site visits nationwide, up from 565 in 2015. Locations outside Dublin accounted for 55% of these visits.  It should, of course, be remembered that site visits are of limited value in projecting future investment, as most investment comes from an expansion of existing company activity.

To attract more FDI to the regions, IDA Ireland must maintain an adequate supply of marketable serviced land and buildings that can be offered to potential investors. There are currently 23 vacant IDA Ireland-owned properties which are available for investment. If such properties were not available it would significantly diminish the agency's ability to win mobile FDI, particularly for regional areas.

I emphasise that IDA Ireland is actively encouraging clients to locate in regional locations. The final decision, however, always lies with the company concerned and can be influenced by many different factors including access to talent, proximity to transport hubs and the suitability of local infrastructure.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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The challenge is to promote job creation outside of the greater Dublin area. The Minister quoted some of the figures and I will rehearse a couple back to her. In 2016, the County Cavan had only two site visits and County Roscommon had only one. These are two counties out of 26 and it is abysmal for them to receive only three site visits.

The greater Dublin area attracted 45% of all visits. The capital is effectively getting half of the attention from IDA Ireland. IDA Ireland's first objective is to try and get companies to come to Ireland and then it has to try to ascertain where can it fit them in or what location it can sell to them but we must focus on attracting companies to locations outside of Dublin. The spillover effect from Dublin will not wash for the communities outside of Dublin. We need more targeted measures.

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy cited figures and I will cite some as well. For example, in 2016, the site visits to County Clare, about which the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Breen will be delighted, numbered 18; while those for counties Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Limerick - the Deputy's native county - Louth, Sligo, Waterford and Westmeath numbered 42, eight, ten, eight, 49, 24, 20, 17 and 36, respectively. The Deputy mentioned Cavan, for which there were two visits. Certainly, there are regional site visits but it is rather silly to be talking about site visits here as we should be talking about jobs created. As I noted earlier, jobs often are created in companies located in the county anyway. One should not equate a site visit with job creation.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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I would not agree that it is silly. In fact, it is silly of the Minister to call it "silly". Site visits are the step on the road to new job creation.

There are 23 vacant IDA Ireland properties around the country. The availability of serviced sites was mentioned by the Minister but the availability of serviced office space is imperative and we are falling behind in that regard. IDA Ireland has an advance facility programme whereby it builds ready-to-go facilities. We need to ramp that up. We need to look at alternative mechanisms of funding that such as, for instance, a public private partnership or whatever the Minister can come up with to provide ready-to-go office space for these companies outside Dublin. It is a big challenge for these target FDI companies to come in and engage in the planning process and all the other headaches that go with that. I ask the Minister to talk to IDA Ireland about ramping up the advance facility programme and rolling out a far more ambitious building programme to have ready-to-go facilities for companies outside of Dublin.

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy mentioned advance factories and those at Sligo, Castlebar and Tralee are all under construction. Those in Galway, Limerick and Dundalk, as well as a further one in Galway, will start their design stage in 2017. Those at Athlone, Carlow and Waterford will follow.

Returning to my earlier comment, job creation is far more important than any site visit. For example, in 2016, the number of jobs created in County Clare, which is a regional and rural area, was 295. The job creation figures in 2016 for counties Donegal, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Sligo, Waterford, Westmeath and Wexford were 145, 1,896, 186, 291, 1,634, 453, 181, 190, 697, 185 and 171, respectively. Those are only the IDA Ireland figures. I can also call out all the jobs that have been created in Enterprise Ireland's client companies. It is not a matter of site visits.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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It starts with site visits.

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It is a matter of what IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland are doing on the ground to create the jobs.