Fermoy faces up to challenges of attracting major investors

ATTRACTING major investment into Ireland is a tricky business.

Investors look for university-educated staff, good infrastructure, close links to an airport and strong broadband connections.

These attractions are part and parcel of Ireland’s major cities, but where does that leave the thousands of Irish towns who want to attract investment?

Take Fermoy in north Cork as an example.

With a population of about 5,000 people and located about 30 minutes from Cork City on the Dublin road, the town is very anxious to be at the top of the queue when it comes to selecting locations for investment. But before that can be achieved there are obstacles, similar to what many other towns in Ireland also experience.

Fermoy needs a major hotel. It also needs to carefully manage the completion and opening of the Fermoy bypass which local business people say will be one of the key issues affecting the town’s future financial and social development.

It needs more civic amenities and it needs to address the poor conditions of some of its roads.

The town is determined to do something about this and, last week, local businessmen, politicians and academics gathered for a conference entitled “Why Fermoy” to discuss the challenges facing the area.

Leading figures from government, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA were invited to give insights into what the town can do moving forward.

Fermoy was urged to think outside the locality and look towards Cork City as a gateway location for attracting investment.

They were told that they need to develop the role of the entrepreneur.

They were told there is a need to set high standards for Fermoy as a residential and amenity area so that it can capture the full benefits of the growth in employment and capture investment programmes foreseen in the immediate future.

Area director of IDA Ireland Brian Conroy said Fermoy had a number of key selling points when it came to attracting investment. “There’s its location in relation to third level institutes within easy reach of up to 60,000 graduates in Cork, Limerick and Kerry, and there are also four airports within two hours of the town centre.”

Minister for innovation policy Michael Ahern said, as we move to higher value jobs in the Irish economy, a number of factors come into play, from access to qualified graduates to quality of living for those employed in high value-added jobs.

The day-long conference which took place in the conference centre of the Teagasc Food Research Centre at Moorepark also looked at how Fermoy can market itself as a place to do business. Delegates heard that the Fermoy Regional Enterprise Board is hoping to start work on a road map to help guide the steps it takes to develop the potential that exists in Fermoy.

One of these steps has to be the development of a new hotel in the town.

Frank Ryan, CEO of Enterprise Ireland, said recent infrastructural developments will allow Fermoy to market itself more aggressively.

Mr Ryan added that entrepreneurship at regional and community level is very important in Ireland.

But the IDA said an individual town or city is too small to make a convincing case to an investor. Instead, they need to present themselves as a region.

IDA chief executive Sean Dorgan said: “Take Youghal and Dungarvan. They had concerns about losing investment and they are saying it’s not coming into their town, but that’s not what the investor is thinking. They are thinking where can I get business graduates and engineers.

“If you’re only fighting the parish or the town fight and not the county fight then you’re in danger of not succeeding against the city regions out there.”