Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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44. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which she and her Department continue to attract jobs to the less developed regions of the country, thereby encouraging an overall balanced economy with consequent economic benefits in line with the recently announced national plan for Ireland, Ireland 2040 - Our Plan; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6325/17]

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. Almost 190,000 more people are at work today than in 2012 when the first Plan was launched. Over the past year employment has grown in all regions. 72% of all jobs created in the past year were created outside Dublin.

The success of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs is crucial to the Government in meeting the Government’s ambition to help create 200,000 additional jobs by 2020, including 135,000 outside Dublin.

The first Progress Reports prepared by the 8 Regional Action Plan Implementation Committees have been published. 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.

In 2016, almost two thirds of new jobs created by Enterprise Ireland supported companies, and over half of those created by IDA supported companies, were outside Dublin. Enterprise Ireland’s strategy for 2017-2020 aims to create a further 60,000 jobs, while sustaining existing ones; IDA will continue to target a minimum increase in investment of 30% to 40% in each region outside Dublin to 2019.

To support the regional jobs agenda, I have ensured that additional funds will be made available through the enterprise development agencies out to 2020. In June 2016, I announced an initial allocation of €5m in competitive funding for 48 local and regional initiatives under two of these calls. All regions benefitted under this initiative.

My Department and Enterprise Ireland are finalising plans for a further regional funding initiative of up to €60m to support collaborative approaches to grow and sustain jobs across the regions.

Additional funding of €150m is being made available to the IDA to support its Regional Property Programme and drive job creation in the multi-national sector.

My colleague Minister Coveney’s draft planning strategy Ireland 2040, calls for the need to replace the concept of balanced regional development with the idea of effective regional development - playing to strengths rather than assuming that a single model suits all areas. The Regional Action Plan initiative is aligned with this approach, working with regional stakeholders to identify and develop each region’s own sectoral strengths and areas of economic opportunity.