IFS2020 Strategy To Increase Investment And Employment In Regional Hubs

The Minister of State for Financial Services, Michael D'Arcy, is in the Northwest to consult with stakeholders on his IFS 2020 Strategy priority to increase investment and employment into regional hubs.

Taking in meetings with IDA and Enterprise Ireland clients and a roundtable with local authority and academic experts, Minister D'Arcy will emphasise the win-win of forging closer links between Dublin and regional hubs.

Minister D'Arcy said: "The Northwest is an area of great potential for expansion in financial services. Not only home to leading IDA financial services client companies, it also benefits from a stream of talent from both sides of the Border in terms of the excellent training and research programmes in the Letterkenny Institute of Technology and Magee College, University of Ulster.

"This advantage also presents challenges against the background of the ongoing Brexit negotiations. I look forward to exploring how we can address these challenges and further support the Northwest developing as a leading regional hub.

"By focussing on four to five existing regional clusters of financial service activities and better aligning them with investment in infrastructure and regional centres of expertise we have an opportunity to attract talent and investment to these regions from both Dublin and further afield."

(MH)