Image caption In total, Invest NI distributed £216m across 2,792 local firms in the three-year period.

A database showing how Invest NI has distributed grants of more than £200m to local firms over the last three years has been produced by The Detail data website.

The data was obtained using Freedom of Information requests and covers April 2011 to September 2014.

The database focuses only on NI firms rather than international investors.

It shows the largest grants went to some of the biggest local employers including Almac, Kainos and Wrightbus.

In total £216m was distributed across 2,792 local firms to support job creation, training and research and development.

The largest local recipients of Invest NI funds are other public bodies: NI Screen received £64m, while the two local universities shared more than £43m.

The only previously unpublicised top 10 recipient is Granville Ecopark Ltd - it runs an anaerobic digestion energy plant in Dungannon, County Tyrone.

It received a £3.7m job creation grant in 2012.

The data is also broken down to show per-head spend of population across local council areas.

As expected, Belfast, which has the densest concentration of businesses, had the largest spend per head at £452.59.

The lowest spend per head is £33.24 in the former Ards council area in County Down.

Spend per head in the former Derry City Council area was £105.39, ranking it 12th out of 26.

Invest NI said that its support for business is "demand-led" and that budgets are not allocated to specific locations.

"Of the near 68,000 businesses in Northern Ireland, 65% are located in the east with 35% in the west. In addition, the vast majority of large firms (in terms of employment) are also located in the east," it said.

"It is therefore only to be expected that we receive a larger proportion of applications for support from businesses based in the east."

Invest NI added that the support offered to local firms in this period will "ultimately lead to investment in the local economy of £1.7bn and 14,717 new jobs".