€500m power station ‘boost for Kerry jobs’

A €500 MILLION gas-fired power station would have huge economic benefits for the jobs-starved north Kerry area, an oral planning hearing was told in Listowel yesterday.

Spanish energy giant Endesa, which employs 27,000 people and is the leading private electricity company in Latin America, has applied for planning permission to build a 450MW plant at Tarbert, on the Shannon Estuary.

Upwards of 500 construction workers would be employed during a four-year period and 38 highly skilled jobs would be created when the plant came into operation, project manager Maurice Kelly said.