Senator Paschal Mooney has expressed serious concerns that the Government is failing to prioritise job creation in the North West, after the latest figures show that the IDA only visited the region a handful of times over the past two years.
According to figures supplied to Fianna Fáil, the jobs agency made no visits to Leitrim in 2011 or 2012. There were only 3 visits to Sligo last year, down from 6 in 2011 and just 3 visits to Donegal over the entire two year period.
Senator Mooney says this raises serious questions about the Government’s priorities.
“We have heard Fine Gael and Labour say time and time again that job creation is their ‘top priority’. But these figures clearly show that jobs in the North West region is not a priority,” said Senator Mooney.
“The fact that the State’s job creation agency, the IDA, did not visit Co Leitrim even once over the past two years is a cause for alarm. This compares to 38 IDA visits to Louth over the same period, 37 to Waterford, 29 to Clare and so on. While I do not begrudge the fact that these areas are getting the attention they deserve, the North West region also needs a strong focus on development, job creation and tackling unemployment.
“In my view, the Government’s strategy on job creation is simply not working in this region. Any tiny drop in the Live Register figures is completely off set by the ever-increasing number of people forced to emigrate for work. Meanwhile, long-term unemployment is increasing every month, and has jumped 3.3% in the past year. Youth unemployment has also reached extremely worrying levels. There are 1,383 people under the age of 25 on the Live Register in Sligo and Leitrim alone.
“The government has produced a jobs initiative, an action plan on jobs, established NewERA and promised tens of thousands of jobs attached to each proposal. Not one of these well-publicised plans has made any dent in the jobs crisis in the North West region. The Jobs Minister Richard Bruton must explain why there has been so little IDA activity in this region since he took up office.”
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