IBEC have released their latest Local Economic Indicators report.
The group say that the publication, called 'Doing Business Locally', is aimed at local policy and business leaders in each of the South East Counties.
Aidan Sweeney, Senior Policy Executive with IBEC told us about the report
"What we've done is we have benchmarked every county and local authority area across a common set of indicators that are based on publically based data.
So it's not actually our commentary or selected use.
We've actually looked at how a local authority area might rank for tourism, for availablitiy of infrastructure whether that be broadband or transport infrastructure and trying to assess what the common strenghts are."
Ibec South East Regional Director, John Farrell, said “The findings in our report show that we must progress the National Planning Framework without delay to better guide regional population growth and address growing imbalances between Dublin and elsewhere. The new Framework has the capacity to address the economic imbalances shown in our report, but only if it is underpinned by increased State investment in transport, broadband, water services, health and education infrastructure across the region. If we invest wisely now, the South East will benefit in the years to come and business will create more jobs locally”.
“Economic growth must be shared across the country. Policy makers must ensure the right conditions exist on a local level to allow the entire country to succeed. In our report, we have ranked key areas of interest to local and national politicians, individuals and businesses alike. This has provided us with a unique insight to the economic and social make up of the local community."
Key indicators for the South East region include:
· 9% of the population of Ireland lives in the South East
· The South East region is 2nd nationally for Local Enterprise Office-supported jobs per capita, with Carlow 2nd, Waterford 4th, Kilkenny 8th and Wexford 17th.
· Carlow is 5th, Waterford 7th, Kilkenny 12th and Wexford 16th for Enterprise Ireland supported jobs per capita.
· Waterford ranks 6th nationally for IDA-supported jobs per capita.
· The South East is 3rd for road surface quality, with Carlow 3rd, Kilkenny 10th, Waterford 18th and Wexford 22nd.
