Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support this Bill, as I do with anything that tries to facilitate or help accommodate companies. That is welcome and needed. I do not buy into the mantra that we saw with the previous debate with the attack on investments in nursing homes and the tax breaks in that area. We must have incentives to attract these companies. The Minister knows how hard it is to attract companies, especially to rural Ireland. They do not want to come outside Dublin and beggars cannot be choosers. We must try to make our areas attractive to companies so they can have employees there.

In my constituency, all over Tipperary and particularly in the south, we have a large number of employed people. There are nearly 4,000 jobs in Clonmel arising from foreign direct investment. Merck, Sharp and Dohme are there for over 40 years and another investment was announced yesterday, although that is for Carlow and Cork. These are good jobs, with a good infrastructure built up and an amount of contract work and business generated from that. There are also subcontractors that supply the larger industries. If we are to wave the red flag and follow Deputy Boyd Barrett's kind of thinking that they are all-----

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