Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The position is as I have stated. The company has not changed from its position, as articulated on 3 October 2007; in essence it has postponed the project indefinitely and is either redeploying or laying off staff. Prior to 3 October it was employing people and was planning and designing for the biopharmaceutical plant at Carrigtwohill. The company decided, however, it wants to hold on to the site. I do not wish to raise expectations one way or the other.

IDA Ireland would have pursued Amgen for quite a number of years. We have almost all the household names in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical sector, but those we do not have, we pursue to get them to invest in Ireland. We won the Amgen company, having beaten the competition. Countries put up a great deal of competition to get biopharmaceutical companies to locate in their country, because the projects are very big in scale and there is a good deal of fixed investment. One can be fairly sure of the long-term prospect once the company locates in an area. We will continue——

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