Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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274. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the breakdown of the refurbishment costs carried out by Údaras na Gaeltachta on its factory premises in the Baile Ghib Gaeltacht in County Meath over the past four years in tabular form (details supplied). [42130/21]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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A major refurbishment and redevelopment of a 4,127 square metre factory building owned by Údarás na Gaeltachta in Baile Ghib, Co. Meath commenced at the end of 2017, arising from an expression of interest and subsequent business plan submitted by an innovative new company, Novelplast, with a view to locating the business and creating new jobs in the Baile Ghib Gaeltacht.

Novelplast commenced operations in Baile Ghib in 2019 and has surpassed its business expectations to date. At the end of 2019, the company had 20 full time staff employed and has now grown to 39 staff, with plans for further expansion.

The company operates in the green economy and the business is based on sustainable and innovative recycling solutions for the industrial plastic industry. Novelplast recycles and repurposes industrial offcut filament and fibre material from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) manufacturing facilities in order to make PET pellets/chips.

Údarás na Gaeltachta committed funding for the upgrade of the building to bring it to the required industry specifications, along with substantial extra works specified by the client company, Novelplast. The total capital expenditure on the project to date is c. €2.8m.  A substantial portion of this relates to the extra works specified by the company, in respect of which Údarás na Gaeltachta will be repaid in full by the company as is the norm with such expenditure. Details of expenditure made by An tÚdarás are provided in the table below.

I understand that Novelplast is working with industry partners and third level intuitions to transform the plastics industry through a project which was approved earlier this year for grant aid under the Government’s Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund. More recently, I understand that Noveplast was successful in being selected under the Government’s first Circular Economy Innovation Grant Scheme (CEIGS) for a project that aims to develop the technology capable of sustainably recycling marine litter and discarded/used fishing nets.