Jobs task force hits out over inaction

AFTER nearly six months of government inaction on a major jobs report for the mid-west, a strong “put-up or shut-up’” message was launched at the Tánaiste Mary Coughlan yesterday by the head of the Dell task force appointed by her last year after the computer giant decided to pull out of Limerick with the loss of 2,000 jobs.

Denis Brosnan, in a forthright rebuke said: “The task force interim report recommendations have been with the Government for over six months now, and little progress has been made in implementing any of the 20 recommendations in the report.”

At meetings with members of the Oireachtas and the media in The Strand Hotel in Limerick, Mr Brosnan, who developed the Kerry Group into an international food giant, said his task force now needed a clear signal from the Government that their phase one proposals are useful and will be implemented.

Mr Brosnan added: “Or else they do not believe in anything we (the task force) say and so there would be no rationale that we should continue. We are not in the mood to quit, but we are saying to the Government: give us good reason to start the second phase of the report. If the Government does not address any of the issues in the first stage, it makes it very difficult about recommencing our work.”

The first phase of the report, he said, looked at ways of stopping the rot and the second phase would look at the potential of the region to grow again with sustainable long-term employment.

While it was not for them to put a time deadline on a response, he said their report will be debated in the Dáil on Thursday.

He added: “Thursday will be a very important day for the (mid-west) region.”

Mr Brosnan also briefed Oireachtas members from the region on key recommendations made in the interim report which the task force wanted action on and included:

- Developing Shannon Airport as an international cargo hub.

-Opening up a bio-chemical bio-medical industrial zone on 70 acres owned by Shannon Development near the University of Limerick.

-Movement on the regeneration of rundown parts of Limerick.

-Redrawing the city boundary and opening Limerick as a tourism gateway.

-A new impetus to IDA and Enterprise Ireland promotion of the Limerick region.

Mr Brosnan said: “There has been a greater decline in IDA and Enterprise Ireland-sponsored jobs in this region in the past year than in any other part of Ireland and action must be taken.”

He said phase two of their report schedule, among other concepts, would also look at developing the mid-west as an energy hub.

He said: “Most of the electricity in this country is generated here in the mid-west and this is the place electricity should be generated. The tourism sector is crucial to the mid-west region and sustains over 25,000 jobs and is part of the lifeblood of the region. While we welcome the temporary employment subsidy to include the tourism industry, more needs to be done.”