The IDA revealed that 9,000 jobs were announced in the first half of 2015, up from 8,000 announced during the same period last year.

There were 110 investments in the first half of 2015, up from 100 investments in the same period last year.

Both IDA Ireland chief executive Martin Shanahan and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD said that job creation in every region of Ireland is paramount.

“Attracting investments into all regions will take time, but based on some of the significant investments we have seen to date – I’m confident that we are progressing in the right direction and I expect that IDA will be in a position to announce several more significant investments in regional locations in the coming months,” IDA Ireland CEO Martin Shanahan said.

‘Central to that strategy is the winning of investments for regional locations. IDA Ireland is taking a number of steps to realise this ambition’
^{— MARTIN SHANAHAN, IDA IRELAND CEO}

“IDA is at the beginning of a new five-year strategy, which was launched in February 2015. Central to that strategy is the winning of investments for regional locations. IDA Ireland is taking a number of steps to realise this ambition.

“We have strengthened our regional management structure; we are working with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and other stakeholders in developing regional action plans for jobs, and we have commenced a programme of property investment in regional locations which have not attracted private sector property investment.”

The jobs in Ireland involve projects such as Apple’s €850m data centre investment in Galway that will generate 300 jobs in various phases, Alexion Pharmaceuticals’ €450m investment in Blanchardstown, Facebook’s plan to create a data centre in Clonee,100 new jobs in Dublin from Slack, 250 Galway jobs by med-tech company Zimmer and 200 Dublin jobs by online fashion site Zalando in Dublin.

A new value proposition for Ireland

“Of particular importance to our jobs strategy is accelerating the rate of job creating in every region of the country,” Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said.

“While unemployment has fallen in every region, and many areas with historically high joblessness are now growing jobs rapidly, some regions are growing faster than others. We are in the process of implementing our regional jobs plans to deliver increased job creation in every region, and IDA has an important part to play in that.

“Today’s results confirm that major progress is being made in this area and that IDA is making major strides towards delivering the ambitious targets for regional job-creation set out in the recent five-year strategy.”

A key plank in the five-year strategy will be a new value propositionfor Ireland.

The value proposition revolves around nine elements of what Ireland can offer, including: track record, talent, tax, ease of doing business, education, access to Europe, cities and clusters, connected research and cutting-edge companies.

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