Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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263. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which she expects innovation to play a distinct role in this country's economic performance in the future; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39319/16]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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Supporting innovation is a key pillar of Ireland’s enterprise policy given the role of innovation in driving productivity, competitiveness and thereby the creation and maintenance of jobs. Innovation 2020, Ireland's cross-governmental strategy for Research and Development, Science and Technology, is based on a shared vision of Ireland becoming a Global Innovation Leader, driving a strong, sustainable, high employment economy and a better society.

Key to achieving the vision in Innovation 2020 is ensuring that our enterprise base remains resilient and internationally competitive. My Department and its agencies have a clear and steady focus on the potential and opportunities that exist and can be created by prioritising innovation and technology as a key driver of success.

Achieving the vision outlined in Innovation 2020 will mean that there will be:

- More enterprises engaged in RDI, including enterprises in the locally traded sectors, to drive productivity performance;

- More enterprises progressing from early engagement with RDI to embedding innovation as a key part of their business model in a self-sustaining way;

- Businesses across the enterprise base embracing new technologies to build successful business models;

- Achieving innovation leadership in key sectors where we can sustain a competitive edge;

- Greater utilisation by enterprises of the research assets of our Higher Education Institutes, by engaging with Research Centres and Technology Centres;

- Greater success in translating intellectual property or new thinking into commercial products and services - by providing better supports for knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship, infrastructure for test-bedding, and access to funding.

Over the course of the strategy, we will further enhance State support for commercialising research and for transferring knowledge from the public research system into enterprise. This will result in more licensing of technologies and the creation of more spinout companies and ultimately jobs.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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264. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which economic development continues to spread evenly to all regions throughout the country; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39320/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The 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. In the first nine months of 2016, 48,500 new jobs were created.

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

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.

I am currently working with ministerial colleagues to develop the 2017 Action Plan for Jobs. My priority is to ensure that the Plan is ambitious and impactful and keeps us on track to deliver on this Government’s goal to help create 200,000 additional jobs by 2020, including 135,000 outside Dublin. The success of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs is crucial to the Government in meeting this objective.

The Regional Action Plan initiative is working to address regional and rural job creation by bringing different stakeholders in each of the 8 regions together to identify innovative and practical actions, to be taken across a range of Departments and agencies, with clear timelines for delivery over the period 2015 – 2017.

Collaboration between the private and the public sector has been a core element in each plan’s development, and will be central to each plan’s delivery.

The first Progress Reports prepared by the 8 Regional Action Plan Implementation Committees have now been completed. While at an early stage, the reports show that good progress is being made in the implementation of the Regional APJs. All regions are on target to meet or exceed the job targets to be delivered by 2020.

The reports will be published shortly.

To support the regional jobs agenda, additional funds will be made available through the enterprise development agencies on a rolling basis out to 2020.

Last June, I announced an initial allocation of €5m in competitive funding for 48 local and regional initiatives under two of these calls. All regions benefited under this initiative.

In addition, as part of this process, my Department and Enterprise Ireland are both currently finalising proposals for:

a) a €40m regional funding initiative in respect of a large scale fund aimed at supporting significant innovative and collaborative projects and activities, and

b) a further competitive regional fund initiative (€5m) to support the development of community-based enterprises and networks that have the potential to grow and sustain jobs in their area.

Both funds will be rolled out in Q1 2017.

In addition, €150m will be made available to the IDA to support its Regional Property Programme and drive job creation in the multinational sector.