Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

We have had enough of that today. A 68-acre site was purchased by IDA Ireland in 2002. It was intended that a great new technological park for the town of Mullingar would be developed on the site. Permission was granted to install all services on the site in 2003. The park is now fully served by road, broadband, electricity, public lighting and footpaths. The attention to detail was such that the park even has a bus stop. Permission was subsequently granted for two units in an effort to attract new business to the town. The park is totally empty today, however. It is being used for grazing purposes. I wonder how much those grazing cattle are costing the Exchequer. Historically, the people of Mullingar have not had good experiences with IDA Ireland. In 1997, IDA Ireland announced that Oxford Health Plans was planning to locate in Mullingar and intended to employ 500 people. The firm had 40 staff in Mullingar at first and increased this to 180 before it closed its doors two years later. Similarly, the Hon Hai Precision Industry Company located in Mullingar in 1999 to great fanfare but little came of it.

I have submitted a number of parliamentary questions on this matter since I was elected to the Dáil. Most recently, in October of this year, I asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to state the number of visits by potential clients to the IDA Ireland park in Mullingar that had taken place since February 2011. The Minister said in reply that he had been "informed by IDA Ireland that so far in 2011, the agency has hosted three site visits by potential investors to Mullingar". That is nothing short of disgraceful and shameful, particularly when one examines the site visit figures for other IDA Ireland parks in the region. When representatives of IDA Ireland addressed Westmeath County Council on 11 May last, they said there is no such thing as a fair share or an equal slice when it comes to bringing direct investment and jobs to Mullingar. IDA Ireland should market Mullingar as a priority location in keeping with its stated policy objective of balanced regional development and delivering 50% of projects to regions outside Dublin. What has Mullingar done wrong? It is strategically placed in the centre of Ireland and is well-serviced by a road infrastructure. Travel times from Mullingar to Dublin Airport and Dublin Port are two hours, an hour and a half to Galway, two hours to Belfast and two and half hours to Cork. Rail services have been improved over the past several years. Mullingar has a well-educated workforce and is close to major third level institutions such as Athlone Institute of Technology, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary as seen on "Nationwide" recently, and NUI Maynooth which is only 30 minutes away. However, the IDA still treats us as second-class citizens.

The Government recently decided to close the Army barracks in Mullingar with the relocation of 200 jobs. In its capital expenditure plan, it announced it would discontinue with the decentralisation of Department of Education and Skills offices to the town with a further loss of 300 jobs. While most decentralisation programmes were a bit airy-fairy, I was informed the Mullingar proposal was the most subscribed of all the plans.

Who will take control of IDA Ireland, as it seems to be a law unto itself? Will the Minister inform me what Mullingar needs to do for the IDA to stop ignoring a business park in the town in which it has invested millions of euro? The agency has failed abysmally in attracting jobs to Mullingar or to work with Enterprise Ireland or the local enterprise boards. It has hoarded this business park away for itself. Several companies have approached the agency to purchase units in the business park, only to be refused unless they had IDA approval. As the Minister knows, opening up just one unit can have a knock-on effect with other businesses opening in the vicinity. What are the Government's plans for job creation and investment in Mullingar? What are the Minister of State's proposals for this 68 acre functional business park, along with those of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, which is still being used to graze cattle?

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