Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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49. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans to tackle the nine unemployment black spots in County Waterford as highlighted by the census summary results due to the fact that unemployment in County Waterford remains above the national average by at least 3%; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30219/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Government policy to reduce unemployment is two-fold.  First, through policies set out in the national Action Plan for Jobs, to create an environment in which business can succeed and create jobs and second, through Pathways to work to ensure that as many of the new jobs and other vacancies that arise in our economy are filled by people taken from the Live Register.

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 second progress report on the implementation of the Action Plan has just been published and shows that good progress continues to be made in implementing the actions. Almost 13,000 jobs were created in the South East since the regional Action Plans for Jobs initiative was launched in January 2015.

According to the CSO Quarterly National Household Survey, in Q2 2016 when the Census was undertaken, there were 25,900 people unemployed in the South East region. The unemployment rate was 10.8%. At Q1 2017, the most recent QNHS data available shows the unemployment rate in the South East has dropped by 1.5 percentage points to 9.3%, compared to the State average of 6.7%.

Moreover, the number of people on the Live Register in County Waterford has fallen by 1,479 in the past 12 months – a drop of 14.5%.

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.

Waterford is home to 35 existing IDA Ireland clients who between them employ 6,135 people in a range of manufacturing and service operations - a net gain of 561 jobs in 2016

At end 2016, Enterprise Ireland companies supported 20,450 jobs in the South East region, 5,721 of which are based in Waterford.

The Waterford LEO is fully engaged in supporting the micro-enterprise and small business sectors in their areas to create and sustain jobs. In 2016, a total of 284 new jobs were created by micro-enterprises that had been supported by LEO Waterford.

To support regional enterprise development, additional funding of up to €60m is being rolled out by Enterprise Ireland over the next 4 years to support the development and implementation of collaborative and innovative projects that can sustain and add to employment at a national, regional and county level.  This regional competitive fund will support the ambition, goals and implementation of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs

In addition, 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.