2026-06-10

I want to raise an issue with the Taoiseach today regarding the lack of Industrial Development Authority, IDA, supported jobs in County Laois. I think the Taoiseach will be shocked by what I have to say. The IDA has ignored Laois for many years. There are 145 IDA-supported jobs in County Laois. That is by far the bottom of its list by a long shot. If the Laois figures were replicated nationally, those figures would amount to 8,000 IDA-supported jobs across the country. If that was the case, the Government would have closed up the IDA for not doing its job years ago. Its record is so bad in County Laois and this has to be dealt with. I am pleading for the Taoiseach's personal help with the IDA chief executive and senior management to do something about this. What happens every time we contact it we are referred to the regional office, which is based in Athlone. What I will say about the four counties the IDA covers in the midlands is that there are 8,000 jobs but only 145 of them are in Laois. Even when we look at the midlands region, it has only 2% of the jobs from IDA-supported companies. When we look at it nationally, it is even worse. I got the figures for site visits to County Laois by the IDA for the most recent available year, which is 2024, from a response to a parliamentary question. There were two site visits to County Laois but there were 18 to Westmeath. Why? The IDA regional office is in Athlone and there is an absolute complete and total bias by the people in the regional office in Athlone in terms of bringing people to other counties. When somebody want to come to the midlands, what do they do? The people in the office in Athlone take them for a little drive down the road to some place on the outskirts of Athlone. That is what is happening. Of course, the IDA will say to us that it cannot tell people where to go; they want to go to places where there is already a cluster of other IDA companies. In pursuing that, however, it has left Laois totally out on a limb. I think the Taoiseach will be shocked to hear that the figures are as stark as they are. I will shortly have a few words to say about Laois's central location, the motorway and the best train service of any regional town in Ireland. The population has gone from 30,000 to 90,000 in my time as a TD. The population of Portlaoise has gone from 10,000 to 30,000 in the last number of years. It is the fastest growing town Ireland. We are providing houses, as the Government wants us to do. Our local authority is ahead of every other country when it comes to the number of houses. We are getting those houses and we appreciate them. Of course, there are issues but we do not have jobs in Laois for most people.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, specifically in respect of the industrial activity and the IDA's performance in attracting investment into County Laois. I must say that I find the figure of 150 jobs quite extraordinary. When we look at Laois geographically it is on the motorway. It has critical mass in terms of population and one would have thought that there would have been a natural gravitation of foreign direct investment to Laois because of its proximity to labour markets in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. Therefore, it has all the ingredients, one would have thought, to enable more jobs to be located there. Of course, Laois is close to other locations where there are substantial IDA jobs. County boundaries are important but if we look at Kildare, for example, it has an extraordinary number of FDI jobs. It is surprising, in contrast, that Laois does not have a more proportionate number of FDI jobs. Some of that may be because there is a significant critical mass of public sector jobs in Laois due to good decentralisation policies of previous Governments, of which Fianna Fáil was a leading member, but we will not go there. I have spoken to the IDA about this. It has happened a lot on the motorways in some other areas as well. I often thought Thurles would have done better because of its location. Not everywhere on the motorway has had quite the same degree of FDI as other places. It does need focus and attention. The IDA aims to secure about 550 of 1,000 investments - about 55% - in regional locations, including a target of 40 investments in the midlands. Regional investment is supported through strong infrastructure, skilled talent and established industrial clusters, which perhaps is an issue in Laois, and available property solutions. Property solutions - suitable sites - are key. The IDA has invested a lot in land and infrastructure across the midlands, particularly in County Laois. About 30 ha are available for development at the IDA business and technology park in Portlaoise. Recent initiatives include supporting ESB infrastructure to increase local power capacity, enhancing site readiness for large-scale investment and securing planning permission for a new internal road to unlock additional development lands. All of these are designed to strengthen Portlaoise's attractiveness for future investments. The IDA is focusing on high-value manufacturing services and research and development opportunities in the region. Under its 2025 to 2029 property programme, the IDA plans 23 projects nationwide, including an advanced building solution and further business park upgrades in Portlaoise.

What the Taoiseach said is interesting. Based on what he said, I can confirm the unusual situation that there are more people who leave County Laois every day to go to work outside the county than there are people with jobs in the county. More Laois people have to commute to work, maybe using the motorway. However, there is also good news. The IDA bought a 45 acre site a few years ago adjacent to a site it already had and it has planning permission to develop it. Let us hope that will bring jobs. The first critical step is for the IDA to arrange a few site visits, not a miserable two visits which it arranged two years ago. The figure has to be up at ten or 12. I understand the issue of clustering and I believe that can have an impact. We need a good kickstart in Laois to get up there in that regard. Enterprise Ireland is not much better. We have only 2,000 Enterprise Ireland jobs in County Laois, which represents only one in six of the entire midlands region. Both outfits are ignoring County Laois.

Laois is a beautiful county but the Deputy's points about investments there are well made. I would give the example of Carlow. For many years, Carlow had an IDA site. When I was Minister for enterprise the IDA even gave up and wanted it to be used for indigenous companies. I advised patience and that we keep going. Eventually Merck Sharp and Dohme arrived to Carlow. It, along with others, has transformed the area industrially. The site is there and we appeal to the IDA to do everything it possibly can to secure a significant, sustainable, high-value industry for the area.