Firms urged to tap into potential of West

INDIGENOUS and multinational investors in the western region will be rewarded with a large pool of educated, highly skilled and enthusiastic workers, according to Lisa McAllister, chief executive of the Western Development Commission (WDC).

She was speaking at the launch of the WDC’s 2005 annual report at Ireland West Airport in Knock.

According to the WDCs recent “Look West” campaign aimed at attracting people to work and live in the west of the country, almost three-quarters of the 1,016 people who have already registered their interest in moving to the region to work have a third-level qualification, while two-thirds are in the 20-35 age group. The most popular sectors where they want employment are IT, finance, education, health and sales/marketing.

Ms McAllister said: “This is an important result. It shows that there are serious opportunities for employers as we have a large pool of highly skilled, enthusiastic workers who want to move to the region to work and live.

“Sometimes, large indigenous and multinational companies think that they must locate in a capital city, but our work is clearly showing that educated, highly skilled people want to have good career opportunities in the western region. In just over three weeks, over 1,000 people have told us that they want to relocate to the West for a better quality of life and they want good career opportunities to match.”

The WDC’s annual report showed it invested €4 million and approved another €6.9m in companies across the seven-county (Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Clare) region.