Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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426. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the contact she is having with companies that have employed both outside and inside Ireland in circumstances in which there are major job cuts being planned; the arrangements or agreements that can be put in place to ensure that there is not an undue number of redundancies here at the expense of saving jobs in other countries; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11006/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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IDA Ireland work closely with their client companies to support and maintain their operations here. That often involves daily engagement with senior management of firms to help grow and sustain their respective presence across the country. This close cooperation is one of the reasons that 2019 was another record year for foreign direct investment (FDI) driven employment in Ireland, with 245,000 people employed in 1,500 IDA client firms.

The economic impact of Covid-19 will, however, unfortunately also be felt in the FDI sector. The IDA is already working closely with affected companies and key stakeholders to help mitigate job losses and to attract new investment that can create new employment opportunities.

In more general terms, it remains the case that Ireland’s economy is outward-facing and export-orientated. That openness has been a key part of our economic success, particularly in the context of our recovery from the global economic crisis that began in 2008. However, multinational companies do sometimes make decisions about their global operations that can lead to job losses here. We very much regret when that happens but it is a reality of the globalised environment in which our economy operates. That is why we constantly work hard, both through the IDA and across Government, to attract new investment to Ireland that can help offset job losses when they do occur. Securing such new investment for the country will remain a key priority in the time ahead, particularly as we seek to recover from the economic impact of Covid-19.