Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 180: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of jobs he expects to be outsourced to overseas locations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4065/06]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 330: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of jobs relocated to lower cost economies in each of the past five years; his plans to address this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4358/06]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 180 and 330 together.

Data on the number of jobs that have been relocated to lower cost economies in the past five years are not available nor is it possible to predict how many will be outsourced to overseas locations in the future. Apart from definitional issues, outsourcing is two-way flow; many of the jobs in this economy, especially in the multinational sectors, could be looked upon as having been outsourced to here and we still continue to capture a significant share of such employment. Inter-firm outsourcing is also an important part of the enterprise activity. I would be confident, therefore, that the net gains well exceed the net outflows. This is evidenced at a macro level in the quarterly employment statistics from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, the latest of which show that the number of persons in employment grew by 96,200 in the year to reach almost 1.99 million in the third quarter of 2005.

While it is true that employment in the manufacturing sector has experienced a loss of more than 32,000 jobs between 2001 and 2004, it is impossible to attribute this to outsourcing. It is fair to say that the present competitiveness characteristics of our economy has made a reliance on low technology based manufacturing less sustainable than it was in the past. It is encouraging that the most recent CSO data points to a slight increase in the numbers employed in manufacturing.

Outsourcing and relocation are inevitable in a free market and open economy like ours and our economic performance has benefited considerably from winning this type of investment from other economies in the past. For some firms, outsourcing of low-end operations makes complete financial and strategic sense and may be the only means to ensure their continued viability. We must recognise that the challenge for Ireland is to attract and retain the high end, higher value added operations that are typified by higher output, improved productivity and greater returns to labour which will ultimately provide longer lasting and higher quality jobs. The enterprise agencies under my Department have adjusted their support strategies to reflect this new paradigm.