IDA: 450 new jobs for Munster

THE IDA is predicting the announcement of at least 450 new jobs within the next few weeks in Cork and Limerick.

The development agency also described 1,000 job cuts in the last week as part of the usual churn of losses and gains and insisted that even in Munster, which suffered most of the cuts, the economic future is still bright.

IDA spokesman George Bennett said it was in discussions with two companies in Cork and two in Limerick which are close to pledging to major facilities.

In Limerick one is almost certain and the other is “in the works”. They would create in excess of 150 jobs.

In Cork, the two projects are “almost certain”, bringing more than 300 jobs Pfizer is also understood to be close to choosing Cork for a new €100 million biotechnology facility.

Mr Bennett said the ‘churn’ of job gains and losses is normally around 6% of the total at any time and although Cork has experienced the negative side of the churn it is still in a good position in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

“There are 133 IDA companies in Cork employing 20,000 people. That is a significant percentage of the total FDI for the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said the 330 Motorola job cuts in Cork have been announced on three separate occasions.

“I think, in fairness, this is the third time Motorola have announced the job losses, and they are the same jobs,” he said.