Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Foreign Direct Investment and Jobs Growth: Discussion

5:00 pm

Mr. Martin Shanahan:

Clients decide where they want to go. We can influence them and showcase certain places but ultimately clients sometimes have preconceived ideas and sometimes they want to be located next to a particular sector or, in some cases, next to a particular company. We do not have a free hand. We are not moving them around like pieces on a chessboard. They have preconceived ideas coming in. Our challenge is to try to influence them and showcase the opportunities particularly in regional Ireland, including the cost differentials. I acknowledge the infrastructure in the midlands is quite strong. There are always things we can do better. The fact we have an institute of technology in Athlone is a great plus. We will showcase all of those. We do not have a free hand. One might argue about the location of them in Roscommon but Jazz, Alexia and Moss Vision have all announced operations in Roscommon in the past two years.

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