O’Keeffe ‘has heard people’ over lack of IDA-led visits

ENTERPRISE Minister Batt O’Keeffe said he has “heard what the people of Waterford have had to say” in terms of the lack of IDA-led visits to the south-east, which has the highest unemployment levels in the country.

Figures released by the Central Statistics Office earlier this week revealed that unemployment has trebled in the region in the last two years.

The figures revealed that unemployment increased from 6.1% in June 2008 to 18.1% in June.

The figure also showed that the south-east went from having the fifth highest unemployment rate to the highest by a considerable distance, with the mid-west in second place at 16.3%.

Up to May, just four of the 193 IDA-organised visits from potential foreign investors to Ireland were to Waterford city and county.

Only six of the visits were to locations in the region.

Mr O’Keeffe yesterday said: “I’ve been in Waterford on Saturday; I’m here today – I hear what people are saying to me about the IDA and the site visits that have taken place.”

However, he had seen “the availability of sites, the suitability of sites; I’ve seen evidence of the levels of skills that are being produced in the area.”

The minister said that he is going to “talk to the IDA and Enterprise Ireland” on the matter.

Mr O’Keeffe yesterday addressed more than 100 delegates at the national conference hosted by Waterford Chamber in association with Waterford City Council and Waterford City Development Board at the city’s Theatre Royal entitled Regeneration: Opportunities for Growth.

The conference focussed on “how Ireland’s oldest city is primed for further regeneration that will allow it to capitalise fully as economic recovery takes hold”.

A spokesman added that the conference concentrated on “what makes vibrant cities work and the role that cities can play in delivering sustainable growth”.

Mr O’Keeffe told the conference that the Government will “continue to fix our banking system; restore order to the public finances; regain our competitiveness; kick-start a proper credit flow and create jobs.”

The Government will support our indigenous and multinational enterprise sector in restoring prosperity, added Mr O’Keeffe.

Regarding the upgrading of Waterford Institute of Technology, Mr O’Keeffe said that he hasn’t yet seen the Hunt Report on third-level education, which will be published in the coming weeks.

However, he had been privy to the “leaks” and told the conference that he thought “the importance of Waterford would be reflected in that report”.

It is understood that Waterford Institute of Technology may be re-branded as a National Technology University, as per recommendations in the report.

Responding to queries about the institution, he said: “How definitive that is; I don’t know… the important thing for us in a small country is that we’d collaborate; that the institutes of technology would collaborate, the universities would collaborate.”

Mr O’Keeffe said that with regards to university designation, “originally there were three applications – the Institute of Technology in Dublin, there was the Cork Institute of Technology and there was Waterford.”

Meanwhile, the minister said that the Government’s “concentration from here to Christmas” would mainly be focused on finances.

However, the matter of by-elections for vacant Dáil seats in Dublin, Donegal and Waterford would be a matter for “after Christmas”.

“There won’t be a focus on by-elections until the New Year,” said Mr O’Keeffe.