Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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57. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the discussions her Department has had regarding the development of a mid-west conference and exhibition centre as envisaged in the action plan for Jobs in the mid-west region for 2015 to 2017. [16828/18]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Since becoming Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, I have made jobs and enterprise in the regions my top priority.

The Regional Action Plan for Jobs 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. A key objective of each of the 8 regional plans is to have a further 10 to 15 per cent at work in each region by 2020, with the unemployment rate of each region not more than one percentage point greater than the national average.

The Plans are being monitored and driven in each region by Implementation Committees, comprising representatives from the business community, as well as the Local Authorities, Enterprise Agencies, and other public bodies in the region. Eight of the nine Implementation Committees, including the Mid-West, are industry led.

Progress across the eight regions has been very positive since the launch of the initiative, with an increase in employment of 8.5% or 118,600 jobs in the regions outside of Dublin and 166,800 additional jobs nationwide, from Q1 2015 to Q2 2017.

Good progress has been made in the Mid-West, and from Q1 2015 (baseline year) to Q2 2017, 16,600 more people are in employment in the region, as against the 2020 target of 23,000. Over the year to Q2 2017, 7,000 more people in employment in the Mid-West region. As of Q4 2017, the Mid West has a Q4 2017 unemployment rate of 6.6% which is 0.5 percentage points above the average for the State.

As outlined in the Mid-West Regional Action Plan, the region has a strong product in the MICE (meetings, incentive, conference and exhibition), or business tourism sector, providing opportunities to capitalise on global growth in this sector. Limerick has a growing reputation as an option for international associations to meet, while the Mid West region as a whole has a strong corporate base which will help to attract more corporate meetings, in addition to experiences and products that lend themselves to securing a much larger part of the incentive business. The Shannon Region Conference & Sports Bureau is a very successful public / private partnership focused on the MICE sector and will aim to attract such events to the counties across the Mid West Region, using the strength and reputation of the aviation and aerospace, pharma, and MedTech sectors and academics at University of Limerick.

The development of a mid-west conference and exhibition centre for the Mid-West is identified as a ‘potential strategic area for job creation’ in the Regional Action Plan. While my Department has not had any discussions in relation to this, given the potential in the sector it is an area the Regional Action Plan Committee may wish to revisit in the context of their forthcoming review of their Regional Plan.

To support the ambition, goals, and implementation of the Regional Action Plans for Jobs, last May my Department launched the €60m Regional Enterprise Development Fund. This competitive Fund is being rolled out by Enterprise Ireland over the next 4 years to support collaborative and innovative projects that can sustain and add to employment at a national, regional and county level. In December last year I announced an allocation of €30.5 million under the first call under the Fund, with 21 projects from all over the country approved for funding. Two projects in the Mid-West region secured funding under the first call: the development of a state-of-the-art National Bio-economy Innovation & Piloting Facility at the former Lisheen Mine site in Tipperary; and Emerald Aero Cluster, comprising 14 indigenous manufacturing companies, brought together with the specific purpose of increasing Aerospace manufacturing export revenues for members and aerospace business.

I launched the second call under the REDF on Monday 16th April, which will allocate the remainder of the €60 million and I hope to see more successful projects coming through from the Mid-West.

Building on the progress and momentum of collaboration achieved to date through the Regional Action Plans is my priority. On Monday last I also met with the Chairs of the Regional APJ committees and other regional stakeholders, and together we have started a process to refresh and refocus all Regional Plans to ensure their relevance and impact out to 2020. I look forward to working further with the regional stakeholders in the Mid-West to ensure we deliver the employment targets for 2020 set out under the Regional Plans.