Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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11. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the allocation of the €250 million fund for regional job creation, including the programmes and schemes that the fund is supporting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37989/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The aim of the Action Plan for Jobs is to help enterprises to create employment in all regions of the country. The latest Quarterly National Household Survey figures from the CSO show that employment has increased nationally by over 133,000 since the start of the Action Plan for Jobs process in 2012. However, not all regions are yet fully experiencing the benefits of economic recovery. Earlier this year, the Government announced details of the Action Plan for Jobs: Regionalinitiative which will seek to maximise the strengths and assets of each region to support enterprise growth and job creation.

In launching the Regional initiative, I also announced that funding of up to €250m will be made available over the next five years to support job creation through enterprise growth in the regions. It is the intention that IDA Ireland will deliver a Regional Property Programme of €150m and a further sum of up to €100 million will be made available through Enterprise Ireland over the next five years to support innovative and collaborative approaches to support job creation across the regions.

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. This competitive call has closed and applications are currently being assessed.

- 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.This competitive call has closed and applications are currently being assessed.

- A third, broader, competitive regional call, to be launched later this year, will support significant projects or initiatives to improve or leverage identified enterprise capability in the regions. An expressions of interest phase for this call has just concluded and is informing the development of the competitive call to be launched later this year. There has been significant level of interest from across all regions in this expressions of interest phase.

As part of its new five year strategy, IDA has committed to increasing the level of investment into each region of Ireland by between 30% and 40%. In support of this goal, IDA is investing in a €150m Regional Property Programme over the five year period to ensure that there is sufficient availability of utility intensive Strategic Sites, quality Business Parks and Advance Building Solutions to attract investment to the Regions.

So far this year, Advance Technology Buildings have been completed in both Waterford and Athlone and the construction of buildings in Sligo, Castlebar and Tralee is at an advanced stage of procurement. Next year, IDA Ireland will continue this programme of advance builds with projects in Galway, Dundalk and Limerick. Investment in IDA Ireland’s portfolio of Business and Technology Parks around the country is also underway.