One of the most trusted benchmarks for judging an upturn in the conditions of country is the number of people out of work, and in this regard things are looking better in Ireland.

The unemployment rate has fallen to 11.9%, the best it has been since 2007 and down from a high of almost 15% three years ago. We are now below the EU average of 12%.

Ireland has seen one of the fastest declines in unemployment in the EU since it hit a high of 14.7% in 2011, when it had the fourth highest rate in the EU. It had the third lowest in 2001 at 3.9%.

Although there is an argument that emigration is helping to skew unemployment figures to artificially low levels, it is hard to argue against the claims that the Government and policy makers put forward.

The Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has been criticised for neglecting rural Ireland in favour of attracting companies to establish operations in larger cities such as Dublin (and its hinterland), Galway, Cork or Limerick. The IDA is responsible for the sourcing of inward investment into Ireland from multinational companies.

It has supported companies such as Google, Facebook, eBay and others establish their global or European bases in Ireland.

To its credit, the IDA has been at the vanguard of the economic recovery and job creation since its inception in 1949. A spokesman for the agency confirmed the amount of jobs it is has responsibility for in Ireland.

“Total employment at IDA client companies now stands at over 160,000 people, the highest level in the history of IDA Ireland,” the spokesman explained. In 2013 alone, the IDA announced that companies it supports created over 13,000 jobs.

Attracting investment

To bring the likes of Google and Facebook to Ireland, the IDA invests millions (almost €470m between 2008 and 2012) on putting in place the infrastructure to attract companies to Ireland. It also arranges visits to sites in different counties where it owns offices or development space.

Between 2008 and 2012, the IDA invested over €467m throughout the 26 counties in a strategy to attract companies to establish operations in Ireland. In that time, more than 48,000 jobs were created by IDA-supported companies. However, taking into account job losses over the same period, the net job figure was minus 3,889.

Some counties fared better than others. Over the five-year period, over 35,000 jobs were created collectively in the urban hubs of Dublin, Galway and Cork, while there just 59 jobs created in Laois, 65 in Monaghan and 66 in Longford.

There was also a large disparity in the amount of money the IDA invested in different counties. Of the €467m the IDA invested between 2008 and 2012, nearly a quarter, or €166m, was spent in Dublin, while €80m was directed towards Cork.

In contrast, Kilkenny received no investment in the same period. Laois was the next lowest on just over €330,000 followed by Leitrim which received an investment of approximately €1.2m between 2008 and 2012.

Pattern

The pattern continues when it comes to site visits arranged by the IDA for potential investors between 2008 and 2012. Of the 1,641 total of arranged visits, 904 were in either Dublin or Cork. This compares to none in Roscommon and Leitrim, just one visit in counties Monaghan and Longford and three in Kilkenny.

The argument from the IDA is that the county-by-county breakdowns on the number of jobs created and investments made in each county “reveals virtually nothing” about the work the agency does. A spokesman for the agency also said such analysis is used to “undermine” the work it does.

The IDA is believed to be in favour of analysis that looks at regions rather than counties. It believes that examining statistics for the northwest rather than looking at counties like Leitrim, Donegal or Sligo in isolation would give a more accurate representation of the figures.

Plausible argument

The IDA also has the plausible argument that it does the groundwork in getting companies into Ireland; it is then the decision of that company to invest where it sees fit, generally in a large urban hub usually with a high-quality transport network. The underlying subtext to this is that perhaps successive governments have been remiss in their duties in making employment black spots such as Donegal, Longford, Leitrim and Wexford more appealing to investors.

So, while the recovery continues a pace, the possibility of creating a two-tier economy between urban and rural also grows. Organisations such as the IDA are playing a pivotal role in reducing the unemployment rate and getting more people back to work.

However, it is clear that the focus on job creation is for urban centres as opposed to rural areas.