Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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162. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the steps that are needed and likely to continue to ensure that Ireland remains an attractive location for foreign direct investment; if any particular obstacles have been identified in this regard; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45387/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s reputation as an attractive location for FDI has remained strong, as evidenced by IDA Ireland’s 2022 mid-year results. Ireland won 155 investments up to the end of the second quarter this year, exceeding both 2021 and 2019 investment levels by 9% and 10% respectively, with total investments having an associated employment potential of over 18,000 jobs. Despite this success we must continue our efforts to maintain Ireland’s attractiveness as a location for investment.

To ensure Ireland remains an attractive investment location, IDA Ireland continues to emphasise the core elements of Ireland’s value proposition for FDI. Our strengths, including our pro-enterprise policy environment, highly educated English-speaking workforce and our membership of the European Union, remain attractive to international investors. In addition, IDA Ireland’s strategy for 2021-2024 was developed within the context of our uncertain and challenging environment and positions the Agency to respond. The Strategy is built on the five pillars of Regions, Growth, Transformation, Sustainability and Impact, and it has an ambitious set of targets including 800 investments and 50,000 new jobs. IDA Ireland will assess progress on the strategy and make any adjustments necessary to respond to changes in the global or national environment. My Department is also currently reviewing our broader enterprise policy through the development of a White Paper on Enterprise. In doing so we are reflecting on how we achieved our enterprise success, in addition to considering how we will address the challenges and obstacles ahead. The paper will set out a medium-to-long-term direction for enterprise policy in response to challenges, opportunities and new drivers of growth.

These steps will enable us to address and respond to the numerous challenges and obstacles emerging from our changing global environment such as increased competition for FDI, inflation, rising energy costs, geopolitical issues, decarbonisation and digitalisation.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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163. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the extent to which a demand still exists for the location of international call centres in Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45389/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The international call centre industry is an important sector in Ireland. Customer experience operations have been a significant employer in Ireland since the 1980s, and in 2019 it was estimated that approximately 56,000 people were employed in this sector.

In recent years it has evolved from traditional call centres to language and technology-based customer interaction and customer experience centres, facilitated by the introduction of customer relationship management tools.

Ireland has continued to be a leading location for customer experience related activities due to its highly skilled and motivated multilingual talent base and favourable economic environment. Ireland’s customer experience companies serve key markets in Ireland, the UK, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the US and Canada. Increasingly, newer markets in Asia Pacific, Africa, and Latin America are also being served.

In 2019, IDA Ireland, along with Enterprise Ireland and the Customer Contact Management Association, published a transformation strategy for the customer experience sector. That strategy cited technology adoption, people change and services transformation as key areas of focus for the sector to remain competitive against international competition. More recently, IDA Ireland collaborated with the Customer Contact Management Association to host a Team Leader Masterclass at IDA Headquarters to share best practices within the sector.

The role of customer contact centres is evolving, and industry will need to innovate to meet the demands of increasing automation and AI. This will be achieved by providing superior customer experience and by ensuring employee training and technology uplifts align to drive business objectives. In this way, the role of the customer contact centres will continue to grow and evolve in Ireland, ensuring the industry remains strong and is competitively placed on the global stage.

Competition for FDI is intense with virtually every country in the world actively seeking new FDI investments. But where there are customers, there will always be a need for high-quality customer service. In Ireland, we offer investors in this sector skilled employees, international connectivity, as well as strong infrastructure in energy, telecommunications, and services.

IDA Ireland will work with its existing client base to assist and support their growth and expansion in Ireland and will continue to highlight Ireland’s strong value proposition to prospective overseas investors.