IDA pledges regions will share large jobs projects

IDA chief executive Martin Shanahan has pledged that the regions will get their fair share of projects from overseas investors in the coming years. 

The IDA will deliver up to a 40% increase in foreign direct investments in all regions to meet IDA Ireland’s target of creating 80,000 jobs by 2020, Mr Shanahan said.

In an upbeat mid-term report, the IDA said it is confident of achieving the figure of 35,000 net new positions, after accounting for job losses, over a five-year growth plan.

“Attracting investments into all regions will take time, but based on some of the significant investments we have seen to date, I’m confident that we are progressing in the right direction and I expect that IDA will be in a position to announce several more significant investments in regional locations in the coming months,” said Mr Shanahan.

He added that the IDA had delivered 110 investment projects in the first six months of this year, with 9,000 jobs being created as a result. This is a 10% investment increase on the same period last year and a 1,000 year-on-year jobs rise. The IDA says 59% of employment in IDA-client firms is located outside of Co Dublin, while 45% of this year’s new investments are based in other regions.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton denied that regions were losing out on IDA jobs projects. He said the idea that the regions are not attracting sufficient levels of investment is “more perception than reality”, adding that each region must play to its individual strengths to attract fresh investments — be that in in food, tourism or pharmaceuticals.

Mr Bruton also reiterated the Government’s confidence in achieving ‘full employment’ by the end of 2018, which he defined as being an unemployment rate of anything under 6%.

Last week’s slump in Chinese stock markets may make it more difficult to attract investments from Asia, while fears over a Greek and British exit from the EU could weigh on investors, Mr Shanahan said.

He said available Dublin office space is not at crisis point and that a significant amount of ‘grade A’ space will be available over the next 18-24 months. On the UK’s plans to lower its corporate tax rate by two percentage points to 18% by 2020, he said Ireland remains competitive via its 12.5% rate, its R&D tax-credit system and its pending ‘knowledge box’ tax initiative. However, it must continually look at its competitive offering, in terms of talent, infrastructure, and cost competitiveness, he said.

Overall, Mr Shanahan said, the IDA is set for another strong year, with its second-half inward investment pipeline looking “promising”.

“Clearly, there are difficult months ahead in a European context, but investors now see Ireland as a very stable option for making large scale investments and as that message resonates I expect the final year picture to be very encouraging,” said Mr Shanahan.