A massive 86% of job announcements by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) this year have been for projects in Dublin or Cork, according to an Irish Farmers Journal analysis.

As outlined in Figure 1, the IDA has had 66 announcements this year where actual jobs were created. Of those announcements, all bar nine were in the major urban centres of Cork (14%) and Dublin (71%).

The IDA should not be criticised for its role as it is simply a facilitator between investing companies and the government. However, it raises serious questions over the government’s strategy and commitment to delivering jobs to rural Ireland.

A large number of the new projects this year were high profile information technology companies. These were significant wins for Ireland against international competition. These businesses could operate in rural Ireland, but the investors are keen to join the cluster already in Dublin.

We have also ascertained that the IDA, the state body responsible for inward investment into Ireland, has sponsored no site visits to Longford this year.

According to official figures, the IDA has led only one firm visit to counties Carlow, Kildare, Kerry, Leitrim, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Wexford and Wicklow in 2013.

These 10 counties have a collective population of 1,045,789. Dublin, however, accounted for over 50% of all visits organised by the IDA.

As a result, rural regions like the midlands, north west and west are being plunged further into the category of ‘employment black spots’ as well as having to contend with less infrastructure.

Earlier this week, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released data which showed that unemployment has fallen to its lowest levels in five years. Full-time employment increased by 53,500 or 3.8% in the year to quarter three 2013 while part-time employment increased by 4,500 or 1.0% over the year.

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The largest rates of increase were recorded in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors which saw an increase of 29.3% or 25,100 jobs.

However, the CSO cautioned that changes in the methodology make the agricultural category unreliable. A 29% increase in employment in agriculture in the past 12 months is simple not credible.