Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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602. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the extent to which Ireland remains an attractive and competitive location for inward and indigenous investment likely to lead to job creation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23292/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, my focus is on improving Ireland’s competitiveness performance. Furthermore, my Department and the Government are very conscious of the need for a sustained focus on ensuring Ireland is an attractive location for mobile international and indigenous investment.

In December the National Competitiveness Council published Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2016which contained a range of actions to enhance national competitiveness. The 2017 Action Plan for Jobs, published in February, sets out an ambitious target for Ireland to achieve a top 5 global competitiveness ranking based on the IMD Competitiveness Scorecard by 2020. Through the reforms set out in the 2017 Action Plan for Jobs, my Department and others are working to improve the ease of doing business, reduce the administrative burden by putting transactions on-line, enhance our cost competitiveness such as addressing insurance costs, increase innovation capacity and productivity and drive greater efficiencies across the enterprise base.

The latest report by the National Competitiveness Council highlights how the challenges posed by Brexit provide urgent impetus to pursue policies that enhance our competitiveness performance. The Council's report provides a timely reminder of Ireland's strengths, which need to be protected and enhanced, and also of areas where we need to remain vigilant and accelerate progress on addressing competitiveness gaps with the UK so as to ensure job creation across all regions.

Furthermore, my Department is also increasing resources for Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland to increase the competitiveness of our indigenous enterprise base and enhance our attractiveness as a location for FDI relative to the UK.