Only 70 permanent jobs at €185m Glanbia super plant

At last, there is now scope for real optimism in rural Ireland, after being obsessed with quotas for over 30 years.

Those mythical mountains of butter, lakes of wine, and images of angry farmers desperately wanting quotas increased to produce food nobody wanted, have hopefully ended for ever.

Could the time be more appropriate than right now for the opening of the €185m milk plant at Bellview on the Waterford-Kilkenny border? This is reputed to be the largest Irish-owned development since the massive Shannon Electricity Scheme of Limerick that first threw light on rural Ireland of the 1920s. The giant Glanbia venture is expected to process 700m litres of milk a year from its 4,000 suppliers and to contribute €400m annually to the economy.