More areas eligible for State grants

The Government has been given clearance to increase the number of regions where it can give grants to businesses to support investment and job creation.

The Regional Aid Map, published by Jobs Minister Richard Bruton, shows that the percentage of the country entitled to investment aid from the Exchequer will rise from 50% to 51.28% from July. It adds Kerry, Arklow, Athy, and Kells to the areas that are eligible, and means every county apart from Cork and Dublin is now included.

The increase is in spite of the fact the European Commission initially sought to reduce the percentage of the country that could receive the aid to 25%. That was following the enlargement of the EU and was also in response to concerns generally of anti-competitive practices by national governments providing very high levels of investment aid to “national champion” companies.