The Minister for Labour Affairs Dara Calleary has refuted claims that Mayo has been ‘snubbed’ in a new IDA plan to attract direct foreign investment.
“The claim that Mayo has been omitted for priority in the new IDA plan Horizon 2020 could not be further from the truth,” Minister Calleary said today (Monday ).
“It is opportunistic for the opposition to make claims about ‘snubs’ and to point the finger at Government representatives, but it would have been preferable and in the interest of clarity if they had at least waited for the plan to be launched before casting aspersions and making incorrect claims about its contents.”
Minister Calleary said the blueprint for attracting Foreign Direct Investment Horizon 2020 was launched last week and it contains a commitment to provide 105,000 new jobs through foreign direct investment by 2014, with 50 per cent of investment going to locations outside Dublin and Cork.
The focus will be directed according to the Government’s National Spatial Strategy, in which Ballina and Castlebar are identified as Hub Towns.
“Horizon 2020 is a comprehensive plan to maximise potential for foreign direct investment and one of its key steps is to support regional development,” explained Minister Calleary.
“The core of the plan is to get all the Government agencies - the IDA, the higher education institutes, the existing multinational base, and indigenous entrepreneurs - to work together with a united aim, to attract foreign investors into Ireland.
“We must continue to work to improve our competitiveness, maintain our tax regime, enhance our broadband structure, continue to build on our infrastructure, build on the quality education system to ensure that we have graduates in the emerging areas, and ensure that regulation is strong but flexible enough to maximise job creation possibilities,” concluded Minister Calleary.
