Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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187. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the degree to which Ireland remains an attractive location for foreign direct investment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30839/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Ireland continues to be a location of choice for new Foreign Direct Investment and long-established FDI companies also choose to reinvest in substantial expansions of their operations in Ireland.

In 2023, 248 investments were won by IDA Ireland, which will enable 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.

Results continue to be strong in the first half of 2024, which saw IDA Ireland support 131 investments, 74 of which are planned for regional locations, enabling the future delivery of 8,900 jobs to the economy. Moreover, as of 2024, Ireland ranks fourth place among 67 economies measured for our global competitiveness in the 2024 IMD World Competitiveness Ranking, marking the second consecutive year Ireland has been placed in the top five.

These results demonstrate not only the resilience of the FDI sector in Ireland, but also the strength of Ireland’s value proposition and attractive business environment, which enables global companies to successfully invest and expand in Ireland. In this regard, my Department works with IDA Ireland to ensure a strong continuing pipeline of inward investment into Ireland with the IDA supporting robust regional investment, and a strong performance across the key transformation areas of research development and innovation, sustainability, digitalisation, and talent development. In this regard, the goals and objectives of IDA Ireland’s strategy ‘Driving Recovery and Sustainable Growth 2021–2024’ are closely aligned to Ireland’s National Climate Action Plan and the White Paper on Enterprise.

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 2023, IDA Ireland approved 25 sustainability projects focused on carbon abatement and building Ireland’s Green Economy with over €1.4 billion committed by IDA client companies on research and innovation projects. Furthermore, client spend of over €77 million was committed to investment in talent development.

The Government's White Paper on Enterprise, which was published in December 2022, emphasises the importance of FDI to the Irish economy and highlights the importance of the green and digital agendas as drivers of future growth and competitiveness. The latest implementation report, for H2 2023, published in May 2024 and available on my Department's website - - provides updates on the initiatives led by IDA Ireland that have been completed, including:

- Embedding carbon abatement into agency operations.

- Driving digital manufacturing objectives through support for industry with the cooperation of the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) and Digital Manufacturing Ireland (DMI) – including the development of a pipeline of digitalisation projects for Ireland’s manufacturing sector - both funded by the IDA.

- 60 FDI sustainability investments so far in the period 2021 to 2024.

Finally, my Department is not complacent about Ireland’s competitive position regarding FDI with policies, strategies and the legislative toolkit constantly kept under review to ensure objectives set out in this critical area of the economy are met. In this regard, the IDA is actively preparing its next strategy to cover the period from 2025.