Kerry sidelined in IDA programme to attract investment
Workers leaving the IDA-backed Beru plant in Tralee last year after being told jobs were to be cut.
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Wednesday March 10 2010
DESPITE soaring unemployment and a raft of factory closures and job losses in recent months Kerry has been effectively ignored in the IDA's latest national programme for attracting foreign investment.
Last week Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan launched the IDA's Horizon 2020 document which outlines the agency's priorities for attracting foreign investment between now and 2014.
The minister and agency have promised to target unemployment blackspots and have pledged to create 105,000 new jobs through foreign investment in the next five years.
Despite Kerry's huge unemployment levels, with 16,993 people on the dole in the county last month and Tralee and Listowel accounting for more than half that figure, Kerry does not even feature in the plan.
Fifty per cent of all foreign investment attracted to Ireland is to be spread across rural counties outside Dublin and Cork. However this does not mean there will be an even spread and counties Limerick, Waterford, Sligo and Donegal have been given priority according to the minister.
Both Sligo and Waterford have considerably lower live register figures than Kerry while Donegal, where the register is only marginally higher than Kerry, is the minister's home constituency. Sligo, with a live register of 5,280, falls behind Tralee's unemployment figure by more than 1,000 people.
The government is also facing into difficult by-elections in Waterford and Donegal following the election of former Donegal South West FF TD Pat The Cope Gallagher to Europe last year and the resignation this week of Waterford based Minister Martin Cullen.
The IDA's recent record in attracting investment to Kerry has been remarkably poor with the agency bringing only a handful of potential investors to visit the county and failing to create a single job in the county last year.
The agency's official report for 2009 shows the IDA did not create any jobs in Kerry in the last 12 months while IDA supported companies in the county shed more than 500 jobs.
The situation in Kerry is in stark contrast to Cork where the IDA created 850 jobs in 2009 alone and secured a further €32 million in foreign investment.
An examination of the IDA's figures for the past three years show Kerry coming in a distant third behind Cork and Limerick when it comes to foreign investment.
Between 2007 and 2009 the IDA created 2,750 jobs at 27 companies in Cork and attracted further investment of €177 million. In the same period Limerick benefited from 475 new IDA assisted jobs.
Kerry however was nowhere near as fortunate. Since January 2007 the IDA has created just 70 jobs in Kerry, at Castleisland's Aetna plant, while IDA backed firms in the area including Beru, Amann and Abbeyfeale's Kostal have shed a total of 660 jobs in the same period.
The IDA said it does all it can to attract investment into Kerry but the decision is ultimately down to the individual businesses and Kerry's infrastructure does not suit the needs of many potential investors.
- SIMON BROUDER
