Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to take this matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Robert Troy. I welcome the recent risk report on unemployment blackspots by the Houses of the Oireachtas Library and Research Service. This excellent research does a great job at highlighting the concentrated nature of employment blackspots. It is particularly worrying, as the Senator said, to note that in 2016, 17 out of a total of 38 electoral districts in the city of Limerick were unemployment blackspots and, moreover, that Limerick city also counted for eight out of the ten electoral districts with the highest unemployment rates in the State.However, it is also worth noting in the report that between April 2017 and February 2021, the live register in Limerick decreased by 3,482 or 32.5%, which was better that the State average decline of 29.1%. Regional enterprise development and sustainable local job creation is a key policy priority of this Government, and I note the Senator mentioned in his remarks that ensuring we have sustainable local job creation is what we must do. To this end, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is overseeing the development of new regional enterprise plans to 2024, including for the midwest. These are bottom-up plans developed by regional stakeholders including the local authorities, the enterprise agencies, the local enterprise offices, regional skills forums and education and training institutes in each region. The Department's regional enterprise development fund has allocated over €117 million across 79 enterprise-strengthening projects in every region since 2017 and the midwest and Limerick have been very successful in attracting these funds, securing just over €15 million for eight significant enterprise focused projects for the region. These funds are supporting significant collaborative and innovative regional projects that will provide a timely impetus to job creation in the midwest.

The Senator mentioned the IDA and regional development is also at the heart of its new strategy, Driving Recovery and Sustainable Growth, which is under the regions pillar. The IDA will take actions in collaboration with existing clients to drive transformation through innovation and upskilling, to develop clusters and to work with clients and stakeholders to facilitate remote working opportunities. There are 143 IDA client companies in the midwest region, employing approximately 24,169 people. The foreign direct investment performance, FDI, in the region has been consistent over the past five years, with employment among IDA clients increasing by 29%. I am confident implementing these strong actions will continue to drive down unemployment in Limerick. The midwest has a significant ecosystem of well-established companies across technology, life sciences, international financial services, services engineering and industrial technologies and it has also won significant investment in the food and film sub-sectors. We have seen, particularly around Covid, the advantages some regions have had in relation to remote working and this is something that is being looked at as well in Limerick. We have seen it in the west, for example, where IDA Ireland has a client, Shopify, which has since 2015 built a team of over 400 people who work remotely in the west of Ireland, and the company continues to grow there. The IDA will ensure both Irish and FDI firms can benefit from the changed landscape by making Ireland a better place to work remotely and by remaining agile in its approach to companies' changing needs in the particular region of Limerick.