I thank you for the opportunity to raise the IDA report 2000. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, but I wish the Tánaiste was here because she is very familiar with the scene in Donegal and very sympathetic to it. I would have liked her to have heard my impressions of the current report. "Simply counting job numbers is no longer the best measure of success in the economy, as Ireland moves into a new era of development. That was fine when unemployment was the key issue", so began the chairman of IDA Ireland, Mr. John Dunne, at the launch of the IDA annual report for 2000.
Unemployment is still a key issue in my constituency even though the IDA does not seem to know. Simply counting jobs is a fairly easy task in my peninsula, particularly those jobs lost to females. Some in Donegal say that it is those jobs lost that are the best measure of success in the economy of my region as Ireland moves into a new era of development. Mr. Dunne went on to say: "the value of a job to the economy, the skills and knowledge levels required to operate that job, the regional location of the job as well as the levels of innovation and research and development in companies are all important measures from now on." He stated "from now on", but each year I hear of the new strategy and the new focus that is being given to the regional locations, to the black spots, to the Border and Objective One regions. This week even Wexford was included.
In 2000 when we counted the numbers in the north west Donegal area, we saw reduced numbers employed through IDA companies from 5,486 to 5,390. What was worse was that this was not even a blip on a healthy screen as the preceding year, 1998, had delivered a drop from 6,461 to 5,486. In five years, IDA Ireland has managed to reduce employment from 6,630 to 5,390 at a time when the IDA is saying it is focusing on us. I would hate to think what it would be like if it ignored us.
We have the optimism of Mr. Dorgan to rely on for the incoming year as we see with the downturn in the American economy, "it certainly would be a very different year compared with the past few years".
IDA staff are due to move into three regional economic centres to stimulate their development as magnets of growth. Yet, in spite of the difficulties experienced in Donegal, there is no plan to locate any of this one-third of IDA staff in the county. Where is the special status and focus?
I concur completely with Mr. Dunne's comments that Irish people now expect not only to have jobs but to have well paid and satisfying jobs, preferably in their own region. He believes these are legitimate aspirations based on the levels of growth and development achieved in recent years and that new responses are required from development agencies such as the IDA and infrastructure and service providers.
We hear on a daily basis of hundreds of jobs being created in other areas and of small numbers of job losses compared to those experienced in Donegal. Immediate replacements and remedial action are provided for job losses elsewhere. It is very difficult to reconcile this with what is happening in Donegal.
The people of Inishowen are among the people to whom Mr. Dunne refers. We need jobs to be delivered in Donegal and we want to see the decentralisation of State mind-sets. State agencies must deliver real jobs to Inishowen and must put in place proper infrastructure to assist our region to make progress if only, as Mr. Dunne states, from the point of view of equity.
Let us stop hearing dreadful statistics such as those outlined in the IDA's annual report of 2000. We must begin to hear fewer excuses and more positive messages for Donegal and the north-west, particularly Inishowen. I will not rehearse the litany of job losses suffered as I have done so on many occasions. Neither will I raise the slow progress made in regard to the sale of IDA land in Moville to Donegal County Council which wishes to facilitate the development of a community enterprise unit. I take this opportunity to commend Donegal County Council on its real efforts and direct actions to make job statistics in Donegal in some way decent.
The challenge remains. I trust I have proved this evening that I have kept informed of the IDA's views and I would now Iike it to react to my views. I await the IDA's 2001 report and await equity for Inishowen and Donegal north-east.