Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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40. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on the discrepancy between County Wexford's unemployment rate of 18.5% and the rate for the south-east region as a whole, which has fallen to 9.4%; the measures she is taking to bridge this gap and bring more job opportunities to County Wexford specifically; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14428/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The official rate of employment and unemployment in the state is measured by the CSO’s Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS) and unemployment rates are published at regional level only.  In the South East region, which includes Wexford, the current (Q4 2016) unemployment rate is 9.4%.

The only unemployment data available at county level is the CSO’s monthly Live Register, which may be the figure referred to by the Deputy.  However, this is not designed to measure unemployment, as it includes part-time workers (those who work up to three days per week) and seasonal and casual workers entitled to Jobseekers' Benefit and Jobseekers' Allowance.

The latest Live Register figures show that the numbers on the Register in County Wexford have fallen by almost 1,800 in the past year.

The key policy response for supporting employment growth in the South East region, including Wexford, is the South East Action Plan for Jobs, which involves 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 Plan, with a 92% implementation rate for actions to be reported on.

As a result of a focused collaborative approach and a range of reforms delivered in the region over recent years, the unemployment rate in the South East has fallen from a peak of 20.1% in 2012 to the current rate of 9.4%.

215,000 people are now at work in the South East.

This represents a net increase of almost 13,000 jobs in the region since Q1 2015. That is over half of our target of 25,000 additional jobs in the region by 2020.

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

Enterprise Ireland companies currently support 20,450 jobs in the South East region, 4,816 of which are based in Wexford. This is an increase of 2,140 since end-2014 for the region, and an increase of 332 for Wexford.

Wexford LEO has supported gross job gains in 2016 of 197 in its client companies. Total employment among LEO Wexford clients was 1,192 at the end of last year.

Wexford is home to 17 existing IDA Ireland clients who between them employ almost 2,630 people in a range of manufacturing and service operations. Since end 2014, IDA-supported companies have seen a net increase of 127 jobs in Wexford.

My Department is providing additional funds through the agencies out to 2020. Together with Enterprise Ireland, I am currently finalising plans for a regional initiative of up to €60m to support collaborative approaches to grow and sustain jobs across the regions, and to encourage each county to reach its full potential.