Written answers

Thursday, 5 February 2015

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Foreign Direct Investment

Photo of Fergus O'DowdFergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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154. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to outline his plans to encourage foreign direct investment in Drogheda, Ardee and Dundalk, County Louth; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5261/15]

Photo of Fergus O'DowdFergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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155. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to detail the number of current active leads by the IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland by location in County Louth; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5262/15]

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 154 and 155 together.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in County Louth is thriving. In the four year period from 2011 to 2014 employment in IDA Ireland client companies in county Louth has doubled. The latest Annual Employment Survey shows that there are 23 IDA Ireland client companies in County Louth employing 3,029 people in full and part time employment while the corresponding figure for 2011 showed that there were 1,511 employed in IDA Ireland supported companies. In the same four-year period there were a total of 52 IDA Ireland-sponsored site visits by potential investors to the county.

County Louth has strong clusters in international business services, with companies in the region such as eBay, Coca-Cola, National Pen and International Fund Services; and in manufacturing with companies such as Cargotec and Becton Dickinson. These international brands are an attraction for additional companies to potentially locate to the North East region. In 2014 alone Becton Dickson announced a €16m investment and expansion of its headquarters in Drogheda while PayPal announced the expansion of its facility in Dundalk with creation of a further 400 jobs.

County Louth also has a strong base of indigenous industry across a wide range of sectors. In fact as recently as this morning, I was happy to be in Dundalk for the opening of a brand new, state-of-the-art Customer Engagement Centre established by SalesSense, Ireland’s leading sales solution provider, which will lead to the creation of 100 jobs during the year. There were 4,797 people employed in Enterprise Ireland assisted companies in County Louth in 2014. Enterprise Ireland’s core focus is supporting the internationalisation of indigenous companies and the Agency does not arrange site visits of a type similar to IDA Ireland.

Enterprise Ireland recently launched a number of initiatives in the North East region (which includes County Louth) including the Competitive Feasibility Fund for the North East Region, which was launched in October 2014. An Enterprise Start event was held last week on 27th January in the Dundalk office with 12 participants. Over €5.4m in funding to companies was approved in 2014.

In terms of infrastructure, Enterprise Ireland has supported five Enterprise Centres in County Louth, which include the Science Services Centre at Finnabair Business Park, the Creative Spark Enterprise Centre on the Inner relief road at Muirhevnamor and more recently The Mill Enterprise Hub in Drogheda.

As the Deputy is aware, the Action Plan for Jobs 2015 was launched on Thursday last, 29th January. This is the fourth annual plan in a multi-year process, which started in 2012. When the First Action Plan for Jobs was launched, unemployment stood at 15.1%. Today it stands at 10.6% and we are on track to exceed our target of 100,000 additional jobs by 2016. We are now setting a goal to bring employment to 2.1 million by 2018 – 2 years ahead of our original target.

We are determined that every region will benefit from the recovery and we will be announcing over the coming weeks and month a series of actions to help drive the achievement of this goal.

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