This article is from page 9 of the 2006-11-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
ENTERPRISE Minister Micheal Martin has hit back at claims that Enterprise Ireland has no intention of decentralising to Shannon.
The minister was in Shannon last week to announce 350 new high-tech jobs for the region. The jobs are to be created over the next five years by Digital River Ireland, which is setting up its European Headquarters in Shannon. The company, which has just clinched a contract with Microsoft, handle all of the online trading requirements for companies including Adobe, Canon and CompUSA Inc.
Shannon Development were instrumental in bringing the company to Shannon.
Answering questions after the announcement, the minister said that a recent move by Enterprise Ireland to sign a 25-year lease on premises in Dublin was not a statement of intent to stay in the capital.
He was reacting to criticism that just a handful of people had expressed an interest in moving to Shannon under the decentralisation scheme. He said the new lease “is a sensible move,” which allowed functions of Enterprise Ireland, currently scattered, to come together under one roof.
The minister added that the signing for 25 years does not mean Enterprise Ireland would stay in Dublin for that length of time. “There are get-out clauses,” he said. The Minister added that a site had now been identified in Shannon for the move and negotiations were under way.
“The first to be up and running in Shannon will be the new unit which has been given a special brief to support the county and city enterprise boards. I would hope there will be 70 staff in situ by next February,” he said.
Stating that the “government decision to decentralise Enterprise Ireland stands,” the minister admitted that they had “greater success” with departmental decentralisation than with the various other bodies listed to move.
“There are discussions going on with the social partners to see how best we handle the move with the agencies,” the minister said.
Asked why he had rowed back on his decision to give Shannon Development’s foreign investment brief to the IDA, Minister Martin said that they had made a convincing argument for it.
“Shannon Development came to us a year ago and put the argument to us that they are a catalyst for economic development in the region. They felt that they still had a role to play in the Shannon Free Zone and I accepted their overall argument,” he said.