Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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106. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her plans and the plans of the State's industrial promotion agencies to assist in job creation and in the maintenance of existing employment throughout counties Cavan and Monaghan in 2017. [48276/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The North East/North West Regional Action Plan for Jobs, which includes counties Cavan and Monaghan, is a key policy response for supporting employment in the Border region. The Plan is stimulating job creation and job retention across the region by facilitating collaborative initiatives between the public and private sector, in conjunction with the provision of new competitive funds, awarded through Enterprise Ireland (EI) to support regional enterprise development projects.

The core objective of the Action Plan is to have a further 28,000 at work in the region by 2020. The Plan is also aiming to ensure that the regional unemployment rate is within the 1% of the State average.

Sectors targeted as part of the plan include traditionally strong sectors for the region like agri-food, manufacturing/engineering and tourism. The Local Authorities, enterprise agencies, and other key public and private sector stakeholders in Cavan and Monaghan have been strongly involved in, and are key drivers of the Action Plan through an Implementation Committee.

The second progress report on the implementation of the Action Plan, covering the period to June 2017, was published recently and shows that good progress was made. Over 96% of the actions due to be completed or progressed by June 2017 were on track.  The progress report is available at www.regionalapj.ie.

Since this regional initiative was launched in January 2015, 6,000 jobs were created in the Border region. The unemployment rate in the region has also fallen from 10.2% in Q1 2015 to 6.6% in Q2 2017.  Furthermore, Live Register numbers have fallen in County Cavan by 16.4% and in County Monaghan by 14% in the past 12 months and by 45% and 51% respectively since 2012.

Enterprise Ireland together with the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) play a critical role in driving and nurturing entrepreneurship all the way from an originating idea at local level, to taking-on global markets. In the period 2014 -2016, Enterprise Ireland provided over €11m to client companies in Cavan and €8m to Monaghan and has funded six Community Enterprise Centres which provide important enterprise hubs to these counties.

In May of this year, Enterprise Ireland launched a new competitive Regional Enterprise Development Fund to assist counties and regions build enterprise capability and capacity.  The Fund will support significant collaborative regional initiatives to build on specific industry sectoral strengths and improve enterprise capability, thereby driving job creation.  

The LEOs in Cavan and Monaghan continue to provide a range of supports for the micro and small business sector in 2017 and beyond through a partnership approach involving the Local Authorities and Enterprise Ireland. As a “first-stop-shop”, the LEOs provide advice and guidance, financial assistance and other supports to those wishing to start or grow their own business. A capital allocation of €452,428 was made available to LEO Cavan and €439,001 to LEO Monaghan in 2017 to fund investment in its clients by way of grants and a range of “soft” supports, such as training and mentoring.

Progress has also been made by IDA Ireland towards achieving its target of increasing FDI in the North-East region by 30% to 40% by 2019. There are currently 12 IDA supported companies in Cavan and Monaghan. I understand that the existing client base has performed well to date and is sustaining a total of 1,340 IDA supported jobs.