Written answers

Tuesday, 1 December 2015

Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Action Plan for Jobs

Photo of Fergus O'DowdFergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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234. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation his views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding the city status of a location; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42639/15]

Photo of Richard BrutonRichard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government launched its long-term enterprise policy in November. It is an ambitious strategy, with the objective of delivering growth over the next decade that is sustainable, led by strong export performance, builds on our sectoral strengths, and that is underpinned by innovation, productivity, cost effectiveness and competitiveness. We aim to build resilience into our economy so that we do not suffer again as we have done in the past number of years.

We have 135,800 more people at work than when we launched our first Action Plan for Jobs in 2012. Our export performance has been exceptional, with exports by Enterprise Ireland clients at a record of €18.6bn last year. Employment in EI and IDA supported firms has grown by over 40,000 since 2012.

We set a target in 2012 to increase employment by 100,000 by 2016. We achieved that ambitious target and have now exceeded it. We want to go further and to replace all the jobs lost during the recession and to realise sustainable full employment over the longer term.

Enterprise 2025 is a strategy that aims to build an economy that will not just achieve full employment but will sustain it in the long term. It has the commitment across government to take focused actions to deliver growth that is sustainable, led by strong export performance and underpinned by innovation, productivity and competitiveness.

The ambition in Enterprise 2025 is that unemployment in all regions will be within 1 percentage point of the national average. Although challenging, this can be realised and the strategy is about all regions benefitting from employment growth that is sustainable over the longer term.

The policy focus through the North East/North West Regional Action Plan for Jobs, the enterprise development agency strategies and the Local Economic and Community Plans, as well as the forthcoming Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies are directly pertinent in this regard (cohesive and connected strategies that take both a national, top-down perspective and a bottom-up approach to leverage regional strengths and commitment are crucial to achieving the ambition). A continued and sustained focus on addressing infrastructure bottlenecks, delivering broadband infrastructures, strengthening the interconnections between HEIs, research institutes and enterprises will all influence the outcome.

The North East/ North West Action Plan for Jobs, launched yesterday, 30 November, aims to deliver 28,000 extra jobs in the counties of Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal by 2020. Key sectors targeted as part of the plan include traditionally strong sectors for the region like agri-food, manufacturing/engineering and tourism, as well as areas targeted for future growth like digital payments, cleantech and creative services. Among the 152 actions in the plan to be delivered over the period 2015-2017 include:

- Achieve an increase of at least 25% in the number of start-ups in the region, and a 25% improvement in the survival rate of new businesses;

- Increase the number of IDA investments in the region by 30-40% up to 2019. This will result in a minimum of 61 additional projects for the North East/North West region by 2019;

- Progression of a Digital Payments Cluster along the M1, building on the success of companies such as PayPal, eBay, State Street, Vesta and Yapstone already established to act as a magnet to other indigenous and FDI companies in this sector;

- Establishment of a North East Regional Skills Forum to ensure the flow of critical skills to enterprises in the region;

- The Local Enterprise Offices will disburse over €2.2million in grant funding, and provide training and mentoring support to over 1,500 business-people per year in the region;

- A Regional Innovation Forum for the North East/North West region to help support more companies to innovate and engage in R&D.

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