David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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369. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the unemployment figures for Waterford city and county, with a comparison with the figures nationally; and the steps she will take to further create jobs in Waterford. [10938/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The latest CSO’s figures show that there were 7,823 on the Live Register in Waterford County and 9,271 people in Waterford City on the Live Register in January 2017. These figures represent decreases of 1,084 and 1,310 respectively over the previous 12 months.

The source of data in relation to unemployment rates is the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) undertaken by the CSO. This information is available at national and regional level, and not at individual county level. The most recent QNHS shows that the unemployment rate in the South East has fallen from a peak of 20.1% in 2012 to 9.4% in Q4 2016. This compares to the national average of 6.7%.

The South East Action Plan for Jobs is the key policy response for supporting employment growth in the South East region, including Waterford, with public and private stakeholders actively engaged in delivering a range of innovative and practical actions set out in the Plan.

The core objective of the Plan is to see a further 25,000 at work in the region by 2020 and to reduce the unemployment rate to within 1% of the State average.

The first progress report on the implementation of the Action Plan was published last December and shows that good progress was made in implementing the actions. The second Progress Report, which will cover the period to end-2016, is currently being finalised and is expected to show similar progress.

While the unemployment figures are still too high, the jobs situation in the South East is improving. Since 2012, the South East has had the fastest rate of jobs growth, in percentage terms, of any region in the country. Almost 215,000 people are now at work in the South East - an increase of 33,500 since 2012.

These figures demonstrate that the overall trend is one of steady improvement and I remain positive that the region is on the road to recovery.

The enterprise agencies are working extremely hard towards the ambitious targets set put in the Regional Action Plan.

Waterford is home to 35 existing IDA Ireland clients who between them employ 6,135 people in a range of manufacturing and service operations. IDA Waterford reported a net gain of 561 jobs in 2016. In addition, I recently announced that software company RedHat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, will create up to 60 jobs in Waterford.

Enterprise Ireland companies currently support 20,450 jobs in the South East region, 5,721 of which are based in Waterford. This is an increase of 2,140 since end-2014 for the region.

The Waterford LEO is fully engaged in supporting the micro-enterprise and small business sectors to create and sustain jobs. In 2015, a total of 416 new jobs were created by micro-enterprises that had been supported by LEO Waterford. Data for 2016 has not yet been published.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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370. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the unemployment figures for the south east, with a comparison with the figures nationally; and the steps she will take to create further jobs in the south east. [10939/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The most recent Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) undertaken by the CSO shows that the unemployment rate in the South East has fallen from a peak of 20.1% in 2012 to 9.4% in Q4 2016. This compares to the national average of 6.7%.

The South East Action Plan for Jobs is the key policy response for supporting employment growth in the South East region, with public and private stakeholders actively engaged in delivering a range of innovative and practical actions set out in the Plan.

The core objective of the Plan is to see a further 25,000 at work in the region by 2020 and to reduce the unemployment rate to within 1 percentage point of the State average.

Key sectors targeted in the South East as part of the Plan include agri-food, tourism, life sciences, manufacturing, retail and financial and business services. The first progress report on the implementation of the Action Plan to June 2016 was published in December last and shows that good progress is being made. The second Progress Report, which covers the period to end-2016, is currently being finalised and is expected to show similar progress.

Since 2012, the South East has had the fastest rate of jobs growth, in percentage terms, of any region in the country. Almost 215,000 are now at work in the South East - an increase of 33,500 since 2012.

While the current unemployment rate is still too high, these figures demonstrate that the overall trend is one of steady improvement.

In addition, both IDA and Enterprise Ireland are placing extra emphasis on regional development in their current strategies. IDA is targeting an uplift of 30-40% in investments in all regions outside Dublin by 2019. In this context, I was pleased to make two significant job announcements in recent weeks in the South East region. 140 jobs will be created in Kilkenny arising from a new animation projects involving Mercury Filmworks of Canada and local studio Cartoon Saloon, while Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, will create up to 60 jobs in Waterford.