Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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68. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which he expects the economy to develop throughout the regions, thereby increasing job opportunities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38579/15]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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69. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which he expects further job creation in areas not previously the beneficiaries of major investment to avail of increased opportunities in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38580/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 68 and 69 together.

The Regional Action Plans for Jobs Initiative was launched by Government in February of this year. The purpose of this initiative is to identify a range of actions over the period 2015 - 2017 aimed at facilitating each region to achieve its economic potential and raise employment levels in each of the regions.

The objective of the Regional Action Plans is to strengthen and develop regional collaboration by encouraging local authorities, regional bodies, higher education institutions, the private sector and communities to come forward with innovative ideas to boost job creation in their area. The aim is to capitalise on regional strengths, assets and areas of competitive advantage in order to support businesses in each region to start-up, succeed, expand, and export.

To date four plans (Midlands, South West, South East and Mid West have been published. The West plan will be launched later this month, with the remaining three (Border, Mid East, Dublin) currently in development and due for launch as soon as possible.

Each regional Action Plan includes a series of practical actions to support enterprise growth and job creation in the region, within clear timelines for delivery. As is the case with the national Action Plan process, it is the cumulative effect of delivering the actions in the regional Plans that will make a real and lasting impact on the business environment and jobs in the regions.

The primary objective of these plans is to have a further 10 to 15 per cent at work in each region by 2020 and to ensure the unemployment rate of each region is within one per cent of the State average. Key targets in the Regional Action Plans published to date are to increase the number of entrepreneurs/start-ups in each region by a minimum of 25%, improve the 5-year survival rate by 25% and improve scaling performance of companies by 25%. Earlier this year IDA Ireland launched its 5 year strategy for the period 2015 to 2019 which aims to create 80,000 new jobs in the economy over the period and increase investment into each region by between 30% and 40%.

The regional Action Plans will be supported by investment of up to €250 million over the next five years, including €150 million for a property investment programme by IDA Ireland, and up to €100 million for three separate competitive calls which are being administered through Enterprise Ireland. The Enterprise Ireland funds will be distributed through three new competitive calls - a €5m Community Enterprise Initiative, to stimulate and support enterprise and job creation throughout the country at local, community and regional level - a €5m fund open to groups of Local Enterprise Offices who come together to bid for funding for projects to support job-creation initiatives in their areas and a third, broader, competitive regional call, to support significant projects or initiatives to improve or leverage identified enterprise capability in the regions.

In the case of all three funding calls, a collaborative approach, tangible jobs impact, enterprise start-up and scaling are amongst the criteria against which applications will be measured. The Community Enterprise and LEO Initiatives are closed and applications are currently being assessed. An expressions of interest phase for the broader Regional call has concluded and is informing the development of the competitive call, to be launched shortly.

The IDA property funding will be used to invest in IDA’s portfolio of Business and Technology parks and ensure there is sufficient availability of utility-intensive strategic sites and Advance Building Solutions to attract investment to the Regions.