Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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76. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the steps taken to ensure that project Kelvin is marketed and developed on an all Ireland basis for the benefit of all the communities along the border. [24459/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The Kelvin Project provides direct international telecoms connectivity between the North West of Ireland and North America, and improved telecoms connectivity to Europe, via a transatlantic submarine telecoms cable which was brought ashore at Portrush in 2009. The IDA uses the benefits of the transatlantic link provided by Project Kelvin to promote the North West and Border region as an attractive and viable location for new inward investment opportunities, and to secure additional projects from existing international investors.

All of the IDA marketing information re: telecoms connectivity at a Regional, National and International level includes details of Project Kelvin. In additi, the IDA utilise the services of a telecoms consultancy to provide technical support in direct meetings with client companies where appropriate.

The IDA has launched a number of regional promotional initiatives in Border Counties - the Invest and Connect marketing programme - and is currently working on the following initiatives to promote the North West of Ireland as a location for international FDI:

- The launch of the Letterkenny Connect and Investment portal which will profile Letterkenny in terms of investment and associated infrastructure etc. This should launch before the end of June 2013 and will include details on project Kelvin;

- A case study of an IDA client company based in Letterkenny which is utilising Project Kelvin with significant benefit in term of latency, bandwidth and cost.

Hibernia Networks (HN), the company which operates the Kelvin network, works closely with IDA representatives on the promotion of Kelvin, including the promotion of the North West region together with the IDA. The agreed approach is to target FDI companies in the space of data analytics and they are working on a marketing pack to jointly present to FDI companies. HN also promotes Project Kelvin at large international connectivity shows in both Europe and the US.

The IDA will continue to work with Hibernia Networks and other stakeholders to build the benefits of Project Kelvin into its sales messages and identify new opportunities to promote the North West and Border region as a whole, as an inward investment location.

In the past 5 years the North West region has seen investments from a range of existing companies across all sectors and most notably Abbott, Elanco, G Bruss, Mirror Controls International, Pramerica, Stiefel, United Health Group and Zeus Industrial Products.