0 The number of times the IDA has visited f ive counties in dire need of jobs
NEW figures released this week reveal that outside of Dublin, more than half of Ireland’s counties were visited by the Industrial Development Agency Ireland (IDA) on two or fewer occasions in the first quarter of 2016.
And five counties received no visit at all: Carlow, Cavan, Laois, Monaghan and Roscommon.
Counties that secured just one visit were Donegal, Kerry, Leitrim, Longford, Offaly, Wexford and Wicklow. The Taoiseach’s home county of Mayo secured just two visits, as did Meath. By contrast Dublin secured 57 IDA visits.
The figures led to a sharp response from the opposition.
‘The Government and the IDA are engaging in a form of economic apartheid when it comes to Rural Ireland,’ Fianna Fáil jobs spokesman Niall Collins has claimed.
Mr Collins also warned Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor that she should ‘learn the lesson of the recent election and drop the Dublin-led, Marie Antoinette “let them eat cake” attitude to job creation in rural Ireland’.
The FF TD was reacting to the latest figures on IDA-sponsored visits on a county-by-county basis.
Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor claimed that within the IDA ‘ambitious investment targets have been set on a regional basis’.
She added: ‘The Government’s commitment to countrywide job creation is further illustrated by the Regional Action Plan for Jobs.’
This initiative, she said, ‘saw eight plans published throughout 2015 and 2016, which identified a range of actions aimed at supporting each region’.
Mr Collins, however, claimed that ‘fancy plans and promises will butter no parsnips in rural Ireland, which appears to have completely disappeared from the IDA’s radar’.
The Government, he said, is ‘still presiding over a two-tiered recovery where half of Ireland has been excised from their imaginary jobs strategy’.
The counties which have not been visited or just visited once are all ongoing employment black-spots.
Donegal has experienced an employment crisis since the collapse of its textiles industry.
In the most recent May CSO figures, unemployment at 12.5% is almost 5% above the national average in the South East, where Wexford continues to struggle.
During the crash, census figures reveal that Offaly, Laois, Carlow, Longford, Wexford and Donegal experienced the steepest fall in employment, with unemployment rates in all counties rising above 20%.
The CSO figures for May also reveal that the Midlands experienced the smallest rise in employment in the State.
‘Rural Ireland has become an economic sink-hole under their watch wherein the new two-tiered recovery rural Ireland is denuded of post offices, broadband, Garda stations, schools and now IDAbacked job creation,’ said Mr Collins. ‘Rural Ireland has highly qualified graduates too but this administration is snoring at the wheel.
‘Minister Mitchell O’Connor needs to get on her bike, go beyond the boundaries of the Dart and Dun Laoghaire, discover rural Ireland and direct the IDA to act pro-actively to ensure all parts of the State share in the recovery.
‘It is astonishing that Carlow, a county with a third level institution which is less than an hour from Dublin, has not had one IDA visit. What are ministers such as Charles Flanagan doing to secure jobs and opportunity for Laois, a county, again, that is less than an hour from Dublin?
‘This is part of a consistent pattern of lethargy where key infrastructure such as broadband and IDA jobs is being rolled out in a manner reminiscent of the draining of the Shannon.’
‘The IDA are engaging in economic apartheid’ ‘This administration is snoring at the wheel’