Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I am informed by IDA Ireland that it is actively seeking an investment for the new building in Garrycastle and is confident of a positive outcome. As property is one of the key considerations for clients when choosing a location, the availability of these suitable premises will provide an additional positive element in the Midlands.

IDA Ireland promotes Westmeath as part of its Midlands Region, which also includes Counties Longford, Laois and Offaly. There are 35 multinational companies employing 4,032 within the region. The region is marketed as having a strong cluster in medical technology and life sciences and is home to many key clients, one such example being Covidien in Athlone.

A digital marketing campaign is in place to market the Midlands Region for potential investors and this is used overseas by IDA Ireland executives, to showcase potential locations within the Midlands Region including Westmeath.

IDA Ireland has regular engagement with the Chief Executives of the local authorities Longford, Westmeath, Laois and Offaly to ensure that there is a continuous line of communication open and a mutually supportive approach taken, considering the role that local authorities now have for economic development.

Growing both Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and indigenous enterprise is key to Ireland’s economic recovery. 2014 was a record year for both IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland in terms of investment wins and job creation, with 7,131 net new jobs being created in IDA Ireland client companies and 8,476 net new jobs being created in Enterprise Ireland client companies.

We are now in the fourth year of the Action Plan for Jobs, which was launched on 29th January last. When the Action Plan for Jobs was first launched, unemployment stood at 15.1%. It now 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.

The Regional Strategy, as part of the Action Plan for Jobs, will provide up to €250 million over five years in additional funding to support regional enterprise development. This includes the roll out of a five year, €150 million property investment programme by the IDA to attract foreign direct investment into the regions. This programme will build on the recent investment by the IDA in a number of advance manufacturing facilities in regional locations. A further sum of up to €100 million will be available to Enterprise Ireland to support enterprises in the regions to start-up, grow and export, thereby creating more jobs in regional locations.

I also recently launched IDA Ireland’s new strategy for the 5 year period 2015 to 2019. In that Strategy the Agency set itself a target of winning 900 investments over the 5 year period and of increasing increase the level of investments won into in each region by between 30% and 40% during the lifetime of the Strategy.