Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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32. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the specific measures, outside of the south east region action plan for jobs, being taken to create jobs in counties with high levels of unemployment and in County Wexford in particular; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39114/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The South East Action Plan for Jobs is the key policy response for supporting employment growth in the South East region, including Wexford, with public and private stakeholder actively engaged in delivering a range of innovative and practical actions set out in the Plan, with clear timelines for delivery over the period 2015 – 2017.

The core objective of the South East Plan is to realise the potential to have a further 25,000 at work in the region by 2020 so as to ensure the unemployment rate is within the 1 per cent of the State average.

The national Action Plan for Jobs is the Government’s key instrument to support job creation. The Action Plan for Jobs is working. Almost 190,000 more people are at work today than in 2012 when the first Plan was launched. The original target was to add an extra 100,000 jobs by the end of 2016. 48,500 new jobs were created in the first nine months of 2016.

Employment has been growing continuously for 16 quarters and over the past year employment has grown in all regions. 72% of all jobs created in the past year were created outside Dublin.

The unemployment rate in the State was 7.3% in November 2016, down from 15.1% when the first Action Plan was launched in Q1 2012.

Employment growth in the South East is strong. Over 13,000 jobs have been created in the region since Q1 2015. However, the unemployment rate for the region at 10.4%, while down from 12.5% in Q1 2016, remains the highest in the country.

While the national Action Plan is a whole of Government approach to support job creation, I am responsible for developing the 2017 Plan. My priority is to deliver on the Government’s goal to help create 200,000 additional jobs by 2020, including 135,000 jobs outside Dublin. The success of the Regional Plans plans will be crucial to the Government in meeting this ambitious target.

I am currently working with Ministerial colleagues to develop the 2017 Action Plan for Jobs. My priority is to ensure that the 2017 Plan is ambitious and impactful and keeps us on track to deliver on our 2020 jobs targets through the delivery of a business environment which enhances our competitiveness and supports sustainable enterprise and employment growth in all regions.