David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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35. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation further to Parliamentary Question No. 31 of 16 October 2014, the strategies and policies in place to encourage enterprise and employment in regional towns, in particular, progress in the development of regional enterprise strategies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28653/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Last February, the Government announced details of the Action Plan for Jobs: Regionalinitiative which seeks to build on the existing strengths and assets of each region to maximise enterprise growth and job creation. This initiative will see Action Plans drawn up for eight regions at NUTS III level.

As I pointed out in my reply to the Deputy's question of 16^thOctober 2014, the Government's efforts are not specifically focused on regional towns, but on building the enterprise base across regions as a whole. The regional Action Plans for Jobs will identify measures that can be taken to enable each region to build on its competitive strengths and increase the number of people at work in the region. Clearly, the benefits of increased employment throughout a region will have a positive impact on individual towns in that region.

The first two regional Action Plans for Jobs, covering the Midlands and the South West regions, were published in the last two weeks. The Plans include an analysis of the characteristics and strengths of each region, followed by a series of actions under thematic headings such as Driving Entrepreneurship, Attracting and Embedding Foreign Direct Investment, and Building Sectoral Opportunities. My Department is continuing to work on the finalisation of a number of further regional Action Plans which will be launched shortly.

In addition, the Government will provide up to €250 million in funding over the next five years to support the Action Plan for Jobs: Regional initiative. €150 million of this funding will support an IDA property programme, while up to €100 million will be made available through Enterprise Ireland for three separate competitive calls which will support innovative and collaborative approaches to job creation across the regions. The first two of these calls were launched on 15^thMay, with a closing date of 10^thJuly 2015. Each call will provide €5 million over the period 2015-2017 for community-based initiatives and for collaborative projects from Local Enterprise Offices respectively. A third competitive call for proposals for regional job-creation projects will be announced in the Autumn.