Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would not agree that it is silly. In fact, it is silly of the Minister to call it "silly". Site visits are the step on the road to new job creation.

There are 23 vacant IDA Ireland properties around the country. The availability of serviced sites was mentioned by the Minister but the availability of serviced office space is imperative and we are falling behind in that regard. IDA Ireland has an advance facility programme whereby it builds ready-to-go facilities. We need to ramp that up. We need to look at alternative mechanisms of funding that such as, for instance, a public private partnership or whatever the Minister can come up with to provide ready-to-go office space for these companies outside Dublin. It is a big challenge for these target FDI companies to come in and engage in the planning process and all the other headaches that go with that. I ask the Minister to talk to IDA Ireland about ramping up the advance facility programme and rolling out a far more ambitious building programme to have ready-to-go facilities for companies outside of Dublin.

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