South-east ‘can become key financial hub’

WATERFORD must focus its efforts on luring some of the world’s leading financial services employers to the region. If they do, others will follow quickly, a leading economist said yesterday.

But the county and the region must ensure the key industrial requirements, chief among them modern infrastructure, high quality housing, high quality IT and a skilled labour force, are met as quickly as possible, Friends First chief economist, Jim Power, said.

“Some 55,500 people are employed in this sector. It is a high value-added activity. It’s all indigenous, all value added and makes a very real contribution to a local economy.

“What you have to create is an environment where public sector employers want to locate and where employees want to live and work.

“It has to be sold as part of our National Spatial Strategy and balanced economic development. Waterford can do it. We have seen some success in Wexford and Kilkenny and Waterford can share in that.

“Our infrastructure is improving, it isn’t great. But if Transport 21 is delivered, access will become easier. We have the IT back-up, we have the skills but the next step to university status for WIT is essential.

“Anyone with any economic interest in the future of Waterford should be pushing this at all levels,” Mr Power told the ‘Invest in Waterford’ seminar at the Clonea Strand Hotel.

Waterford is rife for major development, Riverdeep chief executive Barry O’Callaghan said. “Waterford is a fantastic place and people are constantly surprised by it when they come here. It needs to be marketed more extensively, more comprehensively,” he said.

He said the message from Waterford is that it is open for business. “The world has changed a lot, as has Ireland. But it is still somewhere where people can make a lot of money. Doing it in Waterford is as possible as in Dublin or anywhere else at a fraction of the price with the quality of life to boot. My message would be give it a go,” he concluded.