800 jobs on the way, claims embattled IDA

THE head of the Industrial Development Authority has hit back at criticism that the jobs agency does little to create employment in small towns.

IDA chief executive Barry O’Leary said that up to 800 hi-tech jobs will be announced by IDA-supported firms around the country over the next six weeks.

He made his comments yesterday at the announcement of 250 jobs in Cork at software giant VMware.

Mr O’Leary said the final decision on where a company invests or locates rests with the individual company.

“At the end of the day, it is the clients who make the choice on where to go. We are in international competition. It’s not as if they come to visit the island of Ireland and say this is the only place that we are actually considering.

“It could be Singapore, it could be Barcelona, it could be Czech Republic or the UK, and you have to be mindful of that.

“You can’t force a company to go to a town. But what you can do is incentivise one area over another, and that we definitely do.”

He was responding to criticism earlier this week from Research and Innovation Minister Sean Sherlock, who said the agency is too focused on attracting foreign direct investment to large urban centres at the expense of everywhere else.

But Mr O’Leary said the IDA concentrates on the country’s eight gateway cities and on the regional hub towns.

He said the IDA jobs pipeline looks good over the next six months.

There will be at least five jobs announcements in the next three weeks, with a major jobs announcement expected today, he said.

“Many of them are from world leaders and we are certainly encouraged by this,” Mr O’Leary said.

“The international market is challenging and there is lots of competition for this type of investment.

“But you can see today, this is really good evidence of key investment.”