Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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33. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of jobs that were promoted by the Industrial Development Agency that require foreign language skills to a fluent or native speaker level. [42583/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Forfas Annual Employment survey, which reports on job gains and losses in the enterprise development agencies does not track the language skills requirements of employees in individual companies nor their level of fluency in a foreign language.

Research undertaken by the Expert Group on Future Skills has identified foreign language skills as a key skill requirement for enterprise, trade and export performance, which includes the foreign owned multinational sector.

In some cases the requirement is for native language speakers, due to the nature of the job/function. In other cases, employees with high, but non-native, language proficiency are what is needed, particularly where other highly sought after skills are also required, such as engineering, ICT etc.

IDA Ireland client companies primarily use Ireland as a base to service the European and Asian markets. Ireland’s availability of a skilled labour force is one of the primary reasons cited by IDA Ireland client companies for establishing their operations in Ireland.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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34. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of jobs that were promoted by the Industrial Development Agency which have been recruited from outside the State. [42582/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Forfás Annual Employment Survey reports on job gains and losses in companies that are supported by the industrial development agencies. The Survey does not track the data sought by the Deputy. However, it should be noted that there is free movement of labour within the European Economic Area (EEA) and persons recruited from outside the EEA must comply with Employment Permit Legislation.