merrion street

I am delighted to be here this morning with Ministers Bruton and Burton to announce that National Pen is to add 200 permanent jobs at its European Headquarters here in Dundalk over the next 5 years, with the support of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, through IDA Ireland.

National Pen’s 200 new jobs will add to the 3,000 that the private sector is now creating every month.

Thank you Peter and Pamela for inviting me to be here today to share this great news with you.

National Pen

This decision by National Pen, a world-leader in the manufacture and development of marketing and promotional materials, to expand its workforce is a sure vote of confidence in Ireland’s recovery.

I’d like to publically commend National Pen’s long association with Dundalk since it first established its presence in 1987, and I am delighted to see it set to continue long into the future.

I understand that this expansion will bring National Pen’s permanent workforce to 450 by the end of 2017.

Vote of confidence in the North-East

You cannot underestimate how much of a great boost for the whole Louth area this will represent.

Earlier this year I performed the official opening of the PayPal offices - another important event on the road to recovery in the region.

The expansion of National Pen in Dundalk also represents a significant win for Ireland, as we continue to work hard to attract new investment and jobs into the county.

County Louth has the largest concentration of IDA supported companies with 23 companies employing 1,416 people in permanent positions.

Economy

While this is positive news we understand that there is still a long way to go before the damage of economic crisis is undone.

There are still many regions in Ireland that are still to see improvements on the jobs front.

Our ambition for the country is to see Ireland to become the best small country in the world for business by 2016.

We plan to achieve this by implementing our Action Plan for Jobs, which takes a whole-of-government approach to tackling the barriers faced by business which will support job creation.

The plan contains a range of measures right across Government that will support Irish-based companies to continue to establish, grow and succeed in global markets.

We can see the evidence that the action plan for jobs strategy is working – we are starting to make headway.

Job creation is now at its strongest since 2008.

The upcoming Budget next month will be another opportunity to enhance our business environment and help get Ireland back to work.

Our 12.5% corporation tax rate remains a cornerstone of Irish industry policy and is not in question from any quarters.

As a business you already know that Ireland operates an open, transparent and statute based taxation system.

Also in line with our Programme for Government commitments we won’t be increasing income tax which would only add extra taxes onto jobs and investment and would represent a step back in our path of national recovery.

Yesterday’s welcome growth figures for Q2 are encouraging but will not lessen the task of reducing our deficit back to sustainable levels.

As the economy continues to stabilise we are working towards exiting our international bailout later this year which will be a further boost to investor confidence.

Conclusion

The Government will continue to do everything it can to help businesses, like National Pen, to grow and to create more jobs.

This is a great day for all the team here, demonstrating a real commitment to Ireland by National Pen.

We are delighted to have you here and I wish National Pen every success as their business continues to grow from strength to strength from Ireland.