Mr. Paddy Malone:

SIRO last year announced that Dundalk would be the one big town of the ten it would service. SIRO is a joint venture between Vodafone and the ESB and is already operating. It gives us 1 GB of speed, which is four times faster than the speed available in the Irish Financial Services Centre, IFSC. We are 40 minutes drive from Dublin Airport, almost the same as the IFSC, taking traffic into account. We are positioned quite strongly in that area. First Derivatives in Newry has proved that it is possible to grow from that area. The infrastructure is in place and what is needed is for IDA Ireland to go out and sell it.

On the question of rates, Dundalk suffered because, when the various property schemes were floating around in the 1990s and 2000s, it did not get any significant investment. There was no foreign direct investment in Dundalk in the 1970s and 1980s. That is the cold reality. We lost our four indigenous industries in the 1960s: brewing, tobacco, shoes and heavy engineering. Dundalk has been in a poor situation since the 1970s.