Donegal North East Sinn Féin TD, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn has asked the IDA and the Minister for Jobs and Enterprise, Richard Bruton where are Donegal’s 468 jobs?
Deputy Padraig MacLochlainn
According to Deputy Mac Lochlainn, that should have been Donegal’s fair share of the 13,367 jobs created by the IDA in 2013 with Donegal’s population making up 3.5% of the states population.
Deputy Mac Lochlainn described this Government’s record on inward investment to Donegal as “shockingly bad”.
He said ”In the past two years, you could count on one hand the number of site visits to Donegal facilitated by the IDA. Week after week, the people of Donegal hear of new job announcements in Dublin, Cork and Galway. When will this Government deliver Donegal’s fair share?
“If we ignored the levels of unemployment in Donegal at twice the state average and just asked for our population share of IDA jobs, then at 3.5% of the states population, that should have been 468 jobs last year. When we finally have the 2013 job creation numbers by the IDA in Donegal, it will be miles away from our fair share yet Minister Bruton recently described this record in the Dáil as a “strong performance”.
He added the announcement by the IDA that they will develop an office building in Letterkenny this year to attract investment is of course welcome but it is nowhere near enough.
Athlone and Waterford will have 25,000 square foot facilities built this year by the IDA for example, he said.
“The people of Donegal need to hear real job creation targets for the IDA. The success of companies like Pramerica and United Health- PacifiCare and the excellent work of LYIT and the CoLab facility have demonstrated the potential of our county for inward investors.
“Under the “Horizon 2020″ targets, 50% of all investments facilitated by the IDA every year were to be in the regions outside of Dublin and Cork. This year they fell well short again at 30%. At state level, it could be argued that the IDA have done a decent job in attracting investment, but it is absolutely clear that they continue to fail the regions and particularly, Donegal.
“2014 has to be the year that this failure stops. This county has so much to offer. The Government and the IDA need to meet us half way”.