Vacant factories - Buildings could benefit community

NOTHING is more dispiriting for a local community ravaged by unemployment than the depressing sight of a vacant IDA factory and the fading hope of jobs ever being created there.

The problem is so widespread that 87 factories owned or leased by the IDA currently stand idle. Psychologically, it can have a profound impact on the local community.

If an industrialist was to wave a magic wand in the Mayo village of Ballinrobe, he would give a new lease of life to a factory closed for the past 22 years.