Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 2 December 2020

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Brexit and Readiness of Businesses, Employees and Communities: Discussion

Mr. John James O'Hara:

The quarrying and construction industry has developed industry clusters, so developments should be specific to those industry clusters. We have a new project called W8 Innovation in Leitrim, which concentrates on the quarrying and construction industry under five different points and developing specifically for those industries. Others include science and technology, and agriculture and food, and we have space under Industry 4.0. These are real projects that are being developed in the Border region for industry clusters. Under the first one, we put 40 companies with more than 10,000 staff together and we made a real project with the help of Enterprise Ireland. Enterprise Ireland has been amazingly helpful. We got funding of €3.7 million for that project, which will bring 40 jobs in a three-year period, with 200 indirect jobs in the industry. This is the way we think this should be developed around Ireland and in innovation hubs.