Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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234. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the cost incurred to meet the regional job targets as outlined in Enterprise 2025. [46415/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Enterprise 2025, the Government’s long-term enterprise policy was launched in November this year. 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.

Enterprise 2025 sets out a clear statement of ambition, including that we will have 2.18 million people at work by 2020, with the unemployment rate down to 6 percent and that the unemployment in all regions not more than one percent above the national average.

Achieving this objective at regional level will require a renewed focus on building on the strengths of each region to develop the attractive and competitive environments for business to start, grow and succeed on international markets and to attract inward investment. We started the process of rebuilding the capacity of the regions with the launch of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs this year. In the case of six of the regions we are now firmly moving into the implementation phase of the process and I will be meeting with the enterprise champions in each of the regions early in the New Year.

Enterprise 2025 is a whole of enterprise strategy, aimed at delivering opportunities across all regions and across all sectors, including both manufacturing and services activities. Through a partnership approach with enterprise, representative bodies, the enterprise development agencies, Local Enterprise Offices and others, delivering a step change in enterprise performance and resilience will see a significant increase in Irish owned companies of scale, contributing to Ireland’s reputation for innovation in international markets. The enterprise agencies and the LEOs will use their budgets in the optimal way to deliver on the potential for enterprise growth in the regions. In addition, earlier this year, we announced additional funding to support implementation of the regional Action Plans of €250m over the coming years. This comprises €150m of investment by IDA Ireland in advanced property solutions in the regions and €100m in competitive funding through Enterprise Ireland to support community enterprise initiatives, innovative initiatives by the Local Enterprise Offices and to support regional collaborative and clustering initiatives by public and private sector bodies and enterprises.

Our objective is to establish vibrant ecosystems for entrepreneurship, to stimulate clusters of scale and international visibility in areas of strength and to ensure that Ireland and our regions continue to be the best places to succeed in business, delivering sustainable employment and higher standards of living for all and we will direct available resources accordingly.