BANKS PRESSURISED Gaeltacht development authority Údarás na Gaeltachta to relax its rules and conditions on grant aid late last year, the authority’s chief executive, Pádraig Ó hAoláin, has said.

Commenting on yesterday’s publication of the authority’s annual review for 2008, Mr Ó hAoláin said that the authority did not give in to such pressure, exerted from last September.

However, it did contribute to delays in a number of its projects, and in meeting its target last year for disposal of assets, Mr Ó hAoláin said.

If a State agency was experiencing this, it was “an indication of what is happening between banks and private companies”, he noted.

“Restoration of credit facilities for small and medium-sized companies is one of the strongest instruments that the Government can use to maintain jobs and create new employment,” he emphasised.

Some 1,269 full-time jobs were created in Gaeltacht regions last year, and a further 1,024 posts involving an investment of more than €100 million have been approved. However, a total of 1,100 jobs were lost, with biggest casualties in the Galway and Donegal Gaeltacht areas.

Total employment in companies assisted by the authority amounts to 8,193 jobs, and this year will be “challenging” for job maintenance and creation, Mr Ó hAoláin said.

A cut in exchequer funding, the decline in the sale of the authority’s assets and the deteriorating economic climate may “impair the organisation’s ability to achieve its job targets”. Job approvals for the first half of the year are expected to be “low” as the organisation focuses on employment maintenance, he said.

Traditional manufacturing employment is the most vulnerable sector and declined by 5.5 per cent in companies assisted by the authority last year. However, modern manufacturing, services and the audiovisual and independent television production sectors increased by 9.7 per cent.

Employment in the services industry now accounts for 3,046 jobs or 37 per cent of the total in the seven Gaeltacht regions.

A decision last year to discontinue the activities of its Gaeltacht marine research subsidiary, Taighde Mara Teo, was made following an assessment of the company’s future in light of changes in the marine sector in recent years, the authority said.