IDA Ireland has said that the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) region is still its "priority" in securing new jobs.

Mr Sean Dorgan, the IDA's chief executive, reaffirmed this at the annual general meeting of the BMW regional assembly in Roscommon yesterday. He made his comments at a time when there is concern about a slowdown in Government spending on infrastructural projects in the west - which is compounded by fears that Galway is to lose an IDA office.

The IDA has denied that it is reviewing Galway, and has attributed the spending concerns to the fact that the new area director for the west and midlands, Mr Frank Conlon, has chosen to live in Athlone, Co Westmeath. The outgoing area director, Mr Tom Hyland, was based in Galway, and a regional manager is still assigned to the city, a spokesman said yesterday.

Achieving 50 per cent of all new jobs from greenfield inward investment in the Objective One (BMW) area remained the authority's "absolute priority", Mr Dorgan stressed.

The IDA chief said new job approvals last year had been in line with this target, and that this trend would be repeated this year. Some 48 per cent of all new "greenfield" jobs approved by the IDA to the end of October had been located in Objective One regions. Almost 50 per cent of "first time visits" by potential new investors had occurred in the BMW area, he added.

The key focus for the IDA's marketing drive was to create a "pull" from within each of the regions so that they could become centres of attraction in their own right, he said. "We want to move away from the concept of dispersing investment from Dublin," he said.

"Instead, we want to help regions to create attractive centres of growth for themselves in the key locations."

Sligo and Athlone had been targeted as "key new growth centres" by the IDA in the BMW area. "Already, six of the nine IDA regional offices outside Dublin are in the BMW regions. Ninety-five IDA staff, or nearly one-third of all our staff worldwide, will be located in the regions at the end of this year, and 60 of these will be based in the BMW area," he said.

Mr Dorgan said this focused strategy was "working well", and a significant range of projects had been attracted. "Some real flagship projects have been secured, such as Prudential and Prumerica in Donegal; MBNA in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim; the Abbott developments in Sligo and Donegal; Cardinal Health in Longford; and Genemedix in Tullamore, Co Offaly."

Mr Dorgan also said that existing overseas companies in the BMW region were responding well to carving out new futures for themselves, with companies such as Volex in Castlebar, Co Mayo, and Boston Scientific in Galway both adding very significant research and development centres to their existing operations recently.

Commenting on the current economic climate, Mr Dorgan said that employment growth continued in some companies and sectors in spite of the global slowdown. "New job creation this year in IDA-backed companies will be stronger than it was in any year up to 1995," he said. Though he acknowledged it was very difficult to forecast what the effects of the downturn might be on employment next year, the IDA had reasonable expectations of holding its own in current employment levels, he said.