This article is from page 8 of the 2006-02-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
THE Minister for Enterprise and Employment and unions seem polls apart on the future role of Shannon Development in the Shannon Free Zone this weekend, despite months of talks.
SIPTU remains hopeful that it can convince Minister Michéal Martin to do a u-turn on his decision to take from Shannon Development, responsibility for foreign investment in the Shannon Free Zone and give it to the IDA.
A spokesperson for SIPTU told The Clare People that the unions would continue, “to try to dispel him” of his intent to give responsibility to the IDA.
“We have come to the end of a process of discussion with senior civil servants and hope to meet again with the Minister shortly,” the spokesperson said.
Defending the record of the IDA, the Minister said progress has been made with the unions and he hoped he could bring the matter to a conclusion shortly.
“The performance in the last two years in foreign direct investment has been good. I have been on a number of trade missions with the IDA and the pipe line is good.
“87,000 jobs were created in Ireland last year, quite a number of those were created in Clare as well, and unfortunately people keep looking for the big story about a particular factory coming in.
“But the bottom line is the vast majority of the jobs are created in the fours and the fives in small to medium sized enterprises across the country, some in the indigenous economy some from foreign direct investment.”
He said that his “ultimate objective” was to create additional jobs in Clare and Limerick.
“We have concentrated as well on embedding existing major companies in the region in Ireland against global competition.
“So, for example, with Dell and others, we have been constantly working with companies of that quality to add different functions to their existing functions and to maintain and secure the very substantial employment that is created in this region as a result of those kind of investments.
“Now there are issues around industrial policy and planning in terms of the Mid West and I have made a number of moves in that direction. If we can move ahead with the changes that we’ve suggested, working with everybody together, we can actually add to the number of jobs that we create from foreign direct investment in the region.”