Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Shanahan for coming. He may be blamed for the lack of balance in the development of industrial policy, but companies decide why they should locate in a particular area. I asked one major industry in my area why it had located there and was told it was because it wanted to be located near a major conurbation with a reverse traffic flow in the city. As it is a wet industry, it requires large volumes of wastewater. It also wanted to be located near an international airport. It was probably a choice between north Kildare and Dublin or Glasgow.

It would be quite useful for that regional message to be understood, that in the absence of getting balanced regional development, we will continue to have those stories. I do not necessarily ask Mr. Shanahan to comment on that.

IDA Ireland, according to the reply to a parliamentary question of mine in June, has 100 unoccupied sites. Some of them are rented to local authorities. I presume others are in farm land use or whatever. Has IDA Ireland valued those? Are many of them realistic prospects? It is one matter for companies to visit these, but how realistic are they? What was the methodology used in buying them in the first instance? In buying them, had IDA Ireland a realistic prospect of bringing in foreign direct investment?

In addition, IDA Ireland has sites that will have closed. There is one in my own area, the Hewlett-Packard site which is a high-profile and good site. IDA Ireland will have more areas to market as well. How many locations would IDA Ireland have on its books to which it would be able to bring investors?