Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation.

It is helpful to put our current foreign direct investment footprint into perspective by pointing out that 2016 was a record year for such investment in Ireland. IDA Ireland client companies created nearly 19,000 new jobs during the year across a range of sectors, with every region of Ireland benefiting. This strong performance has continued into 2017. Investments approved by the agency in the first half of the year will lead to the creation of 11,000 jobs, compared with 9,000 for the equivalent period in 2016. It is worth noting that 52% of all jobs created in 2016 were based outside Dublin and that the mid-year results for 2017 show that 54% of all job approvals so far this year are located outside the capital. This clearly shows that IDA Ireland is committed to increasing investment in every region of the country. It remains focused on that goal, as do the Tánaiste and the Government. In addition, IDA Ireland is working towards a number of ambitious targets, including the creation of 80,000 new jobs and 900 new investments in the period from 2015 to 2019. This would bring total FDI employment in Ireland to 209,000. The year 2016 marked the second year of implementation of the current strategy and over the first two years the agency is delivering well ahead of these targets.

The Government accepts that the adequate supply of quality, affordable housing in the right locations, to buy and to rent, is a contributory factor to Ireland's overall competitiveness. The link between the cost of housing and wage expectations means that developments in the residential property sector impact on our international competitiveness and ability to compete for mobile talent. We are now one year into the implementation of Rebuilding Ireland, the Government's action plan for housing and homelessness. In that time many key actions have been delivered or put in train and it is clear from a range of housing related trends that the supply response is coming on stream. All key indicators of construction activity show that residential construction is ramping up considerably. The number of planning permissions is up by almost 50% year on year and the ESRI's latest commentary in October forecast that the number of house completions would reach 19,000 this year and 24,000 in 2018. On that basis, the Rebuilding Ireland target of 25,000 homes per year by 2020 will be met and quite likely exceeded.

In the context of the recent outcome in Athenry, the Government is also taking action to implement an efficient and speedy planning process in order to avoid unreasonable delays in the future. This may include the designation of data centres as strategic infrastructure developments for planning purposes, which would help to ensure future data centre related planning applications would move more swiftly through the planning process.

Ireland's value proposition is based on a highly educated and skilled workforce, an attractive environment in which people want to live and work and a transparent corporate tax regime. For foreign direct investment in Ireland, 2016 was a record year, both in terms of the number of jobs created and the value of investments won. We are on track for more strong results in 2017, in a reflection of our continuing success in attracting capital rich foreign direct investment projects to Ireland. I will cover some of the other issues raised by the Senator when I give my second reply.