Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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19. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the initiatives her Department is putting in place to help support and grow current businesses and attract new enterprises to the areas designated by the CSO as unemployment black spots. [49576/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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According to CSO, the number of people in unemployment in October 2017 was 131,300, a decrease of 26,800 from the same month in 2016, a decrease of 17%. Since the first Action Plan for Jobs was launched in Q1 2012 the number of people in employment has increased by almost 225,000, while the unemployment rate has dropped from 15.2% to 6.0% in October this year.

Between June 2015 and January 2016, my Department published eight Regional Action Plans for Jobs, aimed at raising employment levels in all regions including areas deemed by the CSO to be unemployment blackspots. This initiative is a central pillar of the Government’s ambition to create 200,000 new jobs by 2020, 135,000 of which are outside of Dublin.

The primary objective of these plans is to have a further 10 to 15 per cent at work in each region by 2020 and to ensure the unemployment rate of each region is within one percentage point of the State average. Each plan contains a series of actions with timelines for delivery between 2015-2017, to be delivered through improved collaboration between enterprise agencies and other stakeholders supporting enterprise development in the regions. These plans monitor progress and is reported to Government twice a year.

Enterprise Ireland, the Local Enterprise Offices and IDA Ireland are working to support the implementation of each region’s action plan in order to start, grow and attract new business and employment. Each agency has a suite of programmes and supports to that end.

In May of this year, Enterprise Ireland launched a new €60 million competitive Regional Enterprise Development Fund. This competitive fund is a key action to support the Regional Action Plans for Jobs and the Action Plan for Rural Development. The Competitive Fund will support significant collaborative regional initiatives to build on specific industry sectoral strengths and improve enterprise capability, thereby driving job creation. The evaluation process for the first call under the Regional Development Fund is still ongoing. It is anticipated that a second open competitive call will be launched in early 2018.

The LEOs were established as the ‘first-stop-shops’ for advice and guidance, financial assistance and other supports for anyone who intends to start or grow their own business, they offer a range of supports available from 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) nationwide. The LEOs provide a wide range of supports to existing businesses and entrepreneurs including grants, training, mentoring and access to loan finance through Microfinance Ireland.

At least 70% of all new FDI comes from existing IDA client companies and the IDA are constantly engaging with the current client base about expanding their operations here.  It should also be emphasised that FDI only forms one part of investment in regional locations.  Indigenous enterprise is responsible for a significant portion of employment growth, especially outside Dublin.  My Department and all its Agencies, including Enterprise Ireland and the LEOS, work together constantly and collaboratively to ensure that jobs and investment are spread fairly across this country.

I should also mention, in relation to ‘blackspots’ with a high concentration of unemployment, as identified in the Census, it is important to recognise that Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection services through Intreo are focused on unemployed individuals.  This means that those areas where unemployed individuals are most concentrated will also be the areas that receive a greater share of DESP income support payments and activation and employment services.

Finally, I should mention that in the context of Budget 2018 a new €300m Brexit Loan Scheme will provide affordable financing to Irish businesses that are either currently impacted by Brexit or will be in the future. The new scheme is open to all trading SMEs and large firms employing less than 500. The scheme will see a sizeable reduction in interest rates charged for lending to circa 4%. The new scheme will be delivered by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) through commercial lenders, to get much needed low-cost working capital into Irish businesses.