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A TARGET FOR 50 per cent of all foreign direct investment (FDI) to be made in areas outside of Dublin and Cork has been dropped as figures from the IDA show that inward investment outside of these areas has been falling consistently in recent years.
The government’s most recent Action Plan for Jobs 2013 contains no reference to the target that had been laid out in a plan published in 2012 for the IDA to “deliver 50 per cent of investments outside the Dublin and Cork regions”.
In fact, the last three IDA Ireland annual reports show that the percentage of investments locating outside of Dublin and Cork has fallen from 37 per cent in 2010 to 28 per cent in 2011 and 23 per cent in 2012.
A progress report on the Action Plan for Jobs (APJ) published last year noted that the action had not been completed and “remains a challenging target for IDA Ireland”. It did not appear in any of the documentation related to the Action Plan after that.
In response to queries this week, the Department of Jobs claimed that the APJ is not an “exhaustive list of everything the Government is doing on job-creation”.
IDA Ireland, the State agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment, said this week that the result “should be seen in the context of overall job creation figures for FDI in 2012″ noting that last year 12,722 new jobs were created.
“IDA client companies added a total of 6,570 new net jobs, the IDA’s third consecutive year of growth in net employment,” the annual statement for 2012 said. “Job losses at IDA client companies were the lowest for a decade.”
The IDA admitted it cannot “corral” a company to locate in a particular part of the country and pointed out that competition exists from other major European cities.
A statement to TheJournal.ie said: “You cannot corral a company to go to a particular part of the country unless it will make sense for their business – particularly when the company’s alternative location may be Amsterdam, Barcelona or Munich.”
Meath West and Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín has raised concerns about the small number of jobs created by the IDA in some rural areas, saying that not a single IDA job was created in North Tipperary last year, with one job created in Leitrim, two in Laois and three in Monaghan.
He claims that a “two-tier economy” is developing in Ireland where IDA investment is “biased towards Dublin” to the detriment of other regions.
But the IDA hit back in a statement saying “a county-by-county breakdown of job creation trends, as used regularly by those looking to undermine the IDA’s work in the regions, reveals virtually nothing about how Ireland is performing in attracting foreign direct investment”.
Tóibín also raised concerns about the lack of site visits to areas outside Dublin with figures for 2012 showing that 55 per cent of all site visits by IDA client companies last year were in Dublin.
There were no site visits to Longford while Carlow, Kildare, Kerry, Leitrim, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Wexford and Wicklow received only one visit. Cavan, Kilkenny, Laois, Louth and Mayo received only two visits.
The IDA said that site visits “are in no way indicative of IDA’s efforts to market a region to overseas investors or indeed of IDA’s activities in a region”.
Its statement added: “IDA Ireland continues to make its clients aware of opportunities to locate their businesses outside of Dublin.
“This includes designing itineraries for prospective clients in which IDA executives will drive them around the country to meet with recruitment and property professionals in the regions, as well as existing clients.”
Tóibín criticised the government, saying that it should “have even distribution of economic policy throughout the State”.
He pointed to previous successful clusterings of industries such as medical devices in the West and pharmaceuticals in the South as well as the IFSC in north Dublin as positive examples of this.
“This is a government policy issue,” he said. “I don’t specifically fault the IDA in their role, but the IDA should operate under government policy.”
The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation said that its Action Plan for Jobs “does not purport to be an exhaustive list of everything the Government is doing on job-creation”.
In a statement it said that IDA companies account for less than 15 per cent of overall employment and said that creating jobs outside major cities is the responsibility of a number of agencies, including Enterprise Ireland, Connect Ireland, and Local Enterprise Offices.
The Department also pointed to “major successes” in recent years, saying that “almost 70 per cent of 12,861 new Enterprise Ireland jobs were created outside Dublin”.
“The Government will continue to target increased levels of job-creation across all regions of the country by supporting and coordinating work across this range of bodies,” it added.
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You would imagine that foreign companies would want a minimum level of infrastructure to invest, for example broadband.
You’ve also got to look for a viable potential labour force.
Both of which shockingly occur outside Dublin.
Not nearly to the same extent. If you are looking for highly specialized staff they are much more likely to live in Dublin. You can also attract international staff to Dublin much more easily than Mullingar or Athlone.
Many of the “cities” outside Dublin are just large towns really. The don’t have the population to attract many international companies.
Mary, the fact is it’s very hard to attract people to work outside of the major cities. If a company sets up a plant in a rural area, it will have its pick of the locals but getting people to actually move to the area is a struggle. You will always be able to get people to move to Dublin, Cork and Galway.
So there is no one outside of Dublin who are qualified and experienced to be ” specialized”? It must be monkeys who work in the large pharma companies and centers of excellence in the health sector. Its bias as always, its easy job hunting, no thinking by the IDA or government, no logical thinking of accommodation, look at the rental sector up there, no thinking of work force, hence why companies are hiring people from all over the world.
“Easy job hunting”. Of course it is FFS. Any employer is not going to want to struggle to find qualified people to staff premises. The fact is: people study in larger urban centres because that’s where the universities are. They’re likely to stay there as there are more jobs in these areas. Unfortunately that’s the way it is and has been that way since the industrial revolution. The large pharma companies have large campuses which require thousands of workers. They are all situated close to urban centres if not in them. The reason they are somewhat away from towns is a safety and property price aspect.
There are universities in Limerick and Galway, so why no big job announcements there?
Pharmas have campuses…. Abbotts in Sligo don’t have a campus, Boston Scientific in Galway doesn’t have a campus, Allergan in Westport doesn’t have a campus. None of these are large urban centres.
Its lazy, get them in, announce the number, get the votes. Its zero planning, but quelle surprise with that.
What do you mean by “votes”? The companies choose where they locate. There is no democracy involved. All the IDA does is propose possible locations. Allergan is less than 90 mins from Galway city centre. Galway is an urban centre. Westport and Castlebar aren’t tiny either. Abbott are happy to have their operation spread all over the country and that’s great. But some if not most companies will want a decent sized base. A lot of multinationals are choosing Ireland for their European / EMEA headquarters meaning they will quite possibly have large scale meetings / frequent visitors. Cities accommodate this much more easily re accomodation, airports, entertainment etc. It’s just a fact of life that big business will always prefer cities unless there is a major cultural change. Best bet for rural areas is Enterprise ireland promoting entrepreneurship.
If I have to explain “votes” then there is no point in a discussion.
If you think that the companies choose then your are more naive than I thought. Go an deal with the likes of the IDA and Enterprise Ireland and see how they deal with companies and the location. Grant bonuses and exemptions are well common for relocation concessions.
Airports in Shannon, airport in Knock, plenty of accomadation in both.
Its a fact that the are lazy.
The history of this state has been a failure to promote balanced development as crooked developers bought FF ministers and made millions on land banks around Dublin instead of the state pushing growth across the country.
So most of the state now has very low population densities which leads to no growth there and Dublin is packed to the gills and a houses and child care are breaking most couples and making the city uncompetitive except for large companies.
TIME TO GIVE TAX BREAKS AND INCENTIVES TO BALANCE GROWTH AROUND THE COUNTRY.
YourAuldLady
Population density is the problem. Foreign Investment will usually only target larger cities, even Cork city and suburbs at 350k looses out.
Saying there lazy is not looking at the bigger picture and what businesses are looking for.
If a company wants to locate in Dublin thats the companies choice. Better Dublin than London.
No surprise there then !!
Big cities are growing much faster than rural areas around the world due to agglomeration effects. These are fundamental economic forces of modern capitalism. You only need to compare cities like Hull to places like Manchester.
These are global companies with the pick of any number of international cities for the most part. The IDA can’t force them to locate outside Dublin. What does the rest of the country have to offer that Dublin doesn’t? Lower costs yeah, but costs have become more competitive in Ireland as a whole. I also imagine that these companies feel it is easier the attract international staff to a vibrant city of million people compared to some of the smaller towns of Ireland.
The IDA should try to balance employment growth as much as possible but when the choice is Dublin or Manchester they should be ruthless.
Anyone listening to the news lately could’nt fail to see that most of the the FDI jobs locate to Dublin,or other centres of population, unlike in other countries where local enterprise is encouraged, our over dependence on foreign direct investment also points to our failure in this country to grow our own local company’s that are necessary if we are ever to stem emmigration and create the jobs that are so badly needed in rural communities all over this country.
Bloody FOREIGNer investors, coming over here and taking our investment opportunities, take your money and go back were you’se came from!!
Fair point but it shouldn’t be taken too far. It isn’t quite clear why Ireland doesn’t have many big indigenous companies. We did get a few Irish pharma firms spun out of the big boys and we are starting to get a cluster of Irish people with tech experiencing in big firms. Ultimately it is questionable how much the government can do to improve entrepreneurship.
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