Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to the fundamental question, namely, the need to get a new company to come in and operate the existing facility in Clarecastle. It is a piece of infrastructure that cannot be allowed to fall away and rust.

The Minister's predecessors, Deputies Fitzgerald, Mitchell O'Connor and Bruton also committed to finding a replacement industry for this plant. They have visited the parent plant in Switzerland and engaged with the company but the Minister of State is saying that, three years later, he has failed to find a buyer for the plant or somebody who will run it. He is the Minister of State in the Department and he is from the county. I expected that he would have been able after three years to deliver a replacement company to take over the plant. It is fitted out for second generation pharmaceutical production but, nevertheless, companies are engaged in this throughout the world. Surely he can find a replacement.

See this speech in context