Action plan to deliver 25,000 jobs in west

TAOISEACH Enda Kenny and Jobs Minister Richard Bruton were in Castlebar today (Monday) to launch the West Action Plan for Jobs, aimed at delivering 10 to 15% employment growth in the region over the coming years.

The plan - the fifth of eight regional jobs plans to be published over the coming months – is part of a new €250 million regional jobs strategy led by Minister Bruton.

Following several difficult years since the crash, employment in the west has returned to growth, with 5,000 (3%) extra people at work over the past 12 months.

The west plan targets employment growth of 10 to 15% over and above today’s employment levels and covers counties Mayo, Roscommon and Galway.

Key target sectors include agri-food, tourism, medtech, ICT and pharma. Among the 194 actions in the plan to be delivered over the period 2015-2017 are the following:

• Achieve an increase of at least 25% in the number of start-ups, and a 25% improvement in the survival rate of new businesses.

• Increase jobs in export-led sectors by 20%.

• Increase the number of IDA investments in the region by 30 to 40% up to 2019. This will result in a minimum of 92 additional projects for the west region. As part of this, IDA will build advance facilities in Castlebar (completion 2016) and Galway (completion 2017)

• The Local Enterprise Offices will disburse over €3 million in grant funding and provide mentoring support to over 1000 businesses per year.

• Create 540 extra jobs in Gaeltacht regions in life sciences, mariculture and food, supported by Udarás.

• Establish a regional skills forum to ensure the flow of critical skills to enterprises in the region.

• Create a food innovation hub and a dedicated food innovation centre and help food companies with high potential to scale.

• New programme to build on the success of the Wild Atlantic Way by building out new tourism offerings and deliver new opportunities for the region.

• New traineeships in engineering, hospitality, logistics and transport and TV and film sectors.

• A series of actions to develop the marine research and ocean energy industries in the region.

• Creative industries - a new €2 million INTERREG project to support the creative industries, and  a targeted micro-loan fund for the creative industries disbursed by the Western Development Commission.

• Target the increased participation of women in entrepreneurship.

The Taoiseach said: “While the recovery has begun to take hold across the country, we are keenly aware that it is not yet felt by every family.

“This plan sets out a clear pathway to unlock the potential of the region and is very inclusive.”