Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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103. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for a report on the progress made under the midlands regional enterprise plan; the plans for the future funding of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23093/24]

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Balanced regional enterprise development is a key focus for me and this Government as set out in the White Paper on Enterprise. My Department contributes to this agenda in several ways, including through the development, implementation and oversight of nine Regional Enterprise Plans (REPs).

The Midlands REP is implemented at a regional level by a Steering Committee made up of stakeholders from Longford, Laois, Offaly and Westmeath. Dr Anne Cusack is Chair of the Midlands REP Steering Committee which last met on 17 May 2024 where updates on implementation were shared with members.

My Department oversees implementation of the REPs at the national level. A meeting of the National Oversight Group for the REPs with Steering Committee Chairpersons took place on 25 April 2024, where the REP Chairs provided feedback on implementation.

Nine REP Progress Reports were recently published, which document implementation to the end of Q3 2023 for each plan, including the Midlands. These reports were prepared by the regional Steering Committees and are available on my Department’s website. Good progress has been made implementing actions across the Midlands REP.

Some highlights from the Midlands REP include:

• Fifteen projects in the Midlands have been awarded a combined €18 million from the European Union's Just Transition Fund programme with the Midlands Regional Enterprise Plan ‘Pathway for Just Transition’, being awarded almost €4 million. The remaining funding was shared across 13 projects, including a number of co-working hubs, renewable energy and emissions projects and a film project.
• The Midlands REP has established a Network and Cluster Exchange Forum to formalise strategic connections between networks and clusters, open channels of communication and optimise the benefits from shared opportunities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. The forum is also intended to act as a conduit to feed into regional and national policy in the Smart Specialisation and clustering space.
• A new Midlands Food and Drink Directory was launched this week. The new Directory will be a go-to guide for the regional food and drink producers in the Midlands and will be hosted on the Midlands Ireland website.

My Department is one of the main sources of support for REP projects and has provided significant funding to develop regional enterprise ecosystems through the Regional Enterprise Development Fund, Border Enterprise Development Fund and other schemes administered by Enterprise Ireland. These Enterprise Ireland funding schemes have helped drive implementation of the Midlands Regional Enterprise Plan.

My Department has secured up to €145 million for the Smart Regions Enterprise Innovation Scheme, which will support projects aligned to the Regional Enterprise Plans. The first call of €35 million under this scheme, which is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund, is open on the Enterprise Ireland website. I hope to announce successful projects under this first call in the coming months. I expect that there will be further calls under this scheme over the coming years, which will provide multi-annual funding for key projects aligned to the Regional Enterprise Plans.

Funding is a core issue for delivery of the REPs and the approach to funding will be kept under consideration by my Department and partners in the REP process.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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104. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the extent to which he and his office continue to attract employment generating and trade benefiting enterprises to this country via foreign direct investment or indigenously; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23228/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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My Department works with IDA to ensure a strong continuing pipeline of inward investment into Ireland. As the state agency for Foreign Direct Investment, IDA Ireland continues to help to maintain a strong level of employment across the FDI sector, robust regional investment and a strong performance across the key transformation areas of research development and innovation, sustainability, digitalisation and talent development.

In 2023, 248 investments were won by IDA Ireland which is enabling the creation of 19,000 jobs for the Irish economy. Of these, 132 investments, or 53%, were outside of Dublin demonstrating IDA Ireland’s commitment to balanced regional development. A third of investments won, 83, were greenfield or first-time investments. Last year also saw the number of persons directly employed by IDA Ireland’s client base, comprised of more than 1,800 companies, reach over 300,000 people for the second year in a row.

Focusing on sustainable growth, IDA Ireland will continue to leverage the green transition as a core component of Ireland's proposition to overseas investors by showcasing Ireland as a climate-friendly and sustainable business environment. In this regard, in 2023, IDA Ireland approved 25 sustainability projects focused on carbon abatement and building Ireland’s Green Economy with over €1.4billion committed by IDA client companies on research and innovation projects in 2023. Furthermore, client spend of over €77m was committed to investment in talent development.

IDA Ireland will continue to work with multinational companies already in Ireland to deepen and expand their presence here, while also attracting new multinational investments in core sectors of focus.

My Department, along with Enterprise Ireland, also continues to focus on the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. Enterprise Ireland supports both the start-up and established companies to increase sales and exports in global markets, which in turn results in increased employment.

Through implementation of Enterprise Ireland’s strategy, Leading in a Changing World 2022 – 2024, the agency has an objective to create an additional 45,000 new jobs by 2024, the highest ever level of Government supported indigenous jobs. The total number of jobs created in client companies of Enterprise Ireland was 15,530 in 2023. Even when job losses were taken into account, there was a positive net jobs result of 5,011 in a very challenging year for businesses.

Business is being transformed by drivers such as climate change, the accelerated adoption of technology, and changing trends in globalisation in ways that present both challenges and opportunities. Enterprise Ireland continues to support employment creation sectors through direct advice and funding assistance to internationally-focused enterprises in manufacturing and international services sectors and through working with the network of 31 Local Enterprise Offices.

IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland have developed a new strategy to enhance global sourcing linkages between their respective clients. This new strategy is designed to enhance client engagement and accelerate the delivery of a 20% uplift in global sourcing from IDA Ireland clients for Enterprise Ireland clients by the end of Q4 2024. Under the umbrella of ‘Export in Ireland’, IDA Ireland will facilitate introductions to up to 80 IDA Ireland clients up until the end of 2024.

Despite challenging global issues affecting the Irish economy in recent years, including the impacts of Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Ireland has continued to perform strongly in continuing to attract employment generating, and trade benefiting enterprises.