IDA put under pressure at council meeting to secure jobs for Carrick-on-Suir and Tipperary Town

IDA officials were put under pressure at Tipperary County Council’s monthly meeting to find a replacement industry for Carrick-on-Suir’s Corman Moloko dairy processing plant due to close in June and to attract new industry to Tipperary Town. 

The appeals for foreign direct investment jobs for the two unemployment blackspot towns came from their local councillors after IDA Head of Regions, Property and Enterprise Development Denis Curran and IDA Mid-West Regional Manager Will Corcoran reported to the council on the progress the agency has made in attracting multi-national companies to locate in the county. 

Mr Corcoran told the meeting that there were more than 4,500 foreign direct investment jobs in county Tipperary, which represented a 35% increase over the past 10 years. 

He said there has been a consistent growth in FDI jobs in the county and equally important was the spin off in indirect job creation in Irish companies providing materials, services, construction, human resources, recruitment and technical services.

 GROWTH

Mr Corcoran reported that 65% of that employment growth came from existing investors and he pointed out that the IDA has worked hard to diversify the types of businesses coming to the Mid-West region, which includes south Tipperary.

 He pointed to the financial services jobs being created in Cashel by Waystone  as an example of this diversification. 

He outlined that the biggest multi-national employers among the IDA’s 15 clients in county Tipperary were located in Clonmel with more than 1,400 employed in Abbott Vascular’s plant and more than 1,000 employed in the neighbouring Boston Scientific plant with MSD at Ballydine, Kilsheelan also a major employer. 

The IDA representatives assured councillors the agency was continuing to promote Tipperary and the mid-west region to foreign companies. 

There were complaints, however, from north Tipperary councillors representing towns like Thurles, Roscrea and Nenagh that most of the foreign direct investment jobs in the county are based in the south and these towns haven’t attracted new multi-national employers in years. 

Cllr Seamus Hanafin complained that just over 300 of the county’s FDI jobs were in the north of the county but  Mr Corcoran clarified  that there was a significant growth to over 500 such jobs in the north of the county. 

Mr Curran pointed out that many people in FDI companies were now working remotely or doing hybrid working and some of these would be working in north Tipperary. 

The IDA plans to monitor this trend over the next 12 to 24 months. 

Councillors representing Carrick-on-Suir and Tipperary Town also highlighted the need for  multi-national jobs investment in both towns. 

Carrick Cllr Kieran Bourke asked what the IDA was doing to  find an alternative industry for the Corman Miloko plant outside Carrick-on-Suir that is due to close in June with the loss of 33 jobs. 

He said the production of the company’s dairy spread and butter fat products was moving to Belgium. 

He said unions representing workers at the plant are negotiating with management to try to get staff help to retrain for new jobs. 

The Fianna Fáil councillor felt the IDA needed to “step up” to the mark and help these workers. 

“I am asking you today to get involved and find an alternative to Corman Miloko,” he declared.  

Carrick-on-Suir Municipal District Cathaoirleach Cllr David Dunne told the IDA representatives that most people from his hometown of Carrick have to travel outside the town to work. 

He said Carrick and Tipperary Town were two unemployment blackspots in the county and this needs to be dealt with.

 “It’s  not fair that they are being neglected over the years,” he said and suggested the IDA work to attract multiple small companies to both towns. 

The Sinn Féin councillor said Corman Miloko was a great site with the most up to date plant and he believed a replacement industry could increase the  jobs based there up to 50. 

Meanwhile, Cllr Michael Fitzgerald from Golden said in the 1970s and 1980s Tipperary Town was booming when it had foreign multi-national industries like Atari and Tambrands but a lot has happened since then and a lot of businesses have gone. 

There had been visits to the US and meetings with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. The town manager Anthony Coleman has worked harder than anyone to promote the town and so too has   the Tipperary Town  Taskforce.  

The Fine Gael councillor said there were a lot of things happening within the town but they didn’t seem to be making any great progress on attracting foreign direct investment. 

He said Tipperary Town needed help and needed it maybe more than towns like Thurles and Roscrea. He agreed with Cllr Dunne that Tipperary was one of the county’s employment blackspots. 

And he asked what could elected representatives do to help attract more jobs to Tipperary. 

In response, Mr Curran said the IDA was aware of the impending closure of Corman Miloko but it was a company under the remit of Enterprise Ireland. 

He said they were happy to pass on the councillors’ calls to Enterprise Ireland and  gave a commitment to liaise with Enterprise Ireland about this industry closure. 

He said the IDA  is more than happy to market any facility that becomes available to existing and new investors. On the retraining of workers losing their jobs, he said there has never been better training available to workers through the ETBs and initiatives like Skillsnet. 

And in relation to the appeals made by councillors from various towns in the county, he explained that when companies are considering locating in Ireland they look at the population demographics, a collection of towns and how they can access workers. They don’t look at county boundaries.

The IDA marketed towns as a collective but ultimately it was up to the company to make a decision where to locate. 

He argued that even when a company chose to locate in one town, it wasn’t just an investment in that particular town, it was an investment in the wider region. 

Mr Curran pointed out that the  IDA has to go out  and compete against 150 other inward investment agencies across the world every day to attract foreign companies to Ireland.  

While he understood the pride of place of councillors representing their own areas, the IDA must combine collections of towns and market them as a regional collective because in Europe there were 120 municipal areas with populations of over 300,000 they are competing against to attract companies.