Just four jobs briefings

Officials from the Department briefed OFMDFM on the "latest economic prospects and other issues relevant to the interests of the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce" in September 2008 so that Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness could address the body's annual dinner.

Shortly afterwards OFMDFM requested a further briefing "on the impact of the economic downturn on employment issues" so the Deputy First Minister could address an "all island city regions conference" in Londonderry.

There followed a gap of some months before the Department was asked by members of the Northern Ireland Executive for a briefing on the "Foyle Labour Market and Wages" after Stream International's announcement that redundancy notice had been given to hundreds of its call centre workers last autumn.

DETINI also recently produced information for a motion on the North West Region and the North West Regional Labour Market but that was the sum total of recorded senior departmental interaction over these issues since April 2007.

The Sentinel obtained the information through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. The paper asked for details of correspondence and minutes of meetings with any individuals or organisations, the principal subject of which was job losses or FDI.

In providing a response DETINI said the request had been circulated to all business areas within the Department who might possibly hold information falling within its scope of your request.

But the scant number of meaningful interventions during a time when an already chronic level of unemployment in the Londonderry area was spiralling was explained by the fact that "operational responsibility for issues relating to FDI, Job Creation/Losses, etc. lies mainly with Invest NI."

Consequently, meetings and correspondence on these topics were more likely to involve Invest NI than DETINI. Invest NI, the Sentinel was told, is responsible for managing its own information and it may have details of further meetings and correspondence on FDI and unemployment.

Equally, DETINI says that in the case of meetings involving Ministers documentation is held in the Minister's - Arlene Foster and before her Nigel Dodds - private office for one month before being returned to the responsible business area or sponsored body for appropriate filing.

DETINI also explained that it holds a large amount of information and there may well be other documentation where references to the city, FDI, job losses and unemployment do occur but these are not at the top of the agenda as specified in the paper's FOI request.

The cost of conducting a trawl of the Department's files - the Sentinel was told - would "exceed the FOI cost threshold, over and above which departments are not required to respond to requests."

The Sentinel has asked Invest NI to provide details of any records it has of meetings and correspondence with individuals in Londonderry that had at the top of their agenda FDI or job losses between April 2007 and the present day.

Between February 2009 and January 2000 the amount of people forced to claim the dole in Londonderry rose from 4,057 to 5,023.