More new homes needed in Clonmel in wake of Boston Scientific jobs announcement

The Taoiseach and Mayor of Clonmel have spoken of the need for more private house building to get underway in Clonmel in the wake of Boston Scientific’s announcement it will create more than 400 new jobs at its Clonmel plant over the next two years.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Cllr Pat English made their comments after attending an event at Boston Scientific in Clonmel last Friday marking the plant’s 25th anniversary at which the €80m investment was formally announced.

After welcoming the US multinational’s huge jobs announcement, they expressed concern that more housing estates are not being built in Clonmel.

Speaking outside Boston Scientific, Mr Varadkar said he was very pleased to be in Clonmel for Boston Scientific’s announcement of a further investment in the plant and creation of more than 400 jobs.

He described it as “very positive news for Clonmel, Tipperary and the South East” and noted it followed on from the announcement of 600 new jobs in Limerick the previous week and 1,000 new jobs in Athenry the week before that. “I think it shows that economic development and progress is very much happening now in all parts of Ireland and all regions.

“The Government is very committed to that and wants to make sure big investments and job announcements aren’t just in Dublin or Cork; that they are happening all over the country.

“A lot of that is on foot of the investment that has happened down the years in infrastructure, education and other things.”
When asked about the lack of housing being a stumbling block for expanding businesses, he noted the chances were that most of the extra 400 people Boston Scientific, Clonmel will recruit will probably already have homes and work in the region. But he acknowledged there would be some coming from outside the region to work here and there were many people who wanted to buy a home for other reasons.

He said this was why house building needed to accelerate and he noted the number of house building commencements have started to increase again with really good numbers in April.

He was conscious that in towns around the country like Clonmel there was often very little new housing being built and often any new housing was social housing.

“We need homes for people to rent or buy so we’re going to continue to look at things that we can do to make it more attractive for builders to build new homes.

“You know a town like Clonmel there should be a new housing estate nearly every year and that’s not happening and that is a matter of concern.

“I do think the fact we have waived the development levies will help to make it more viable but we have to look at other things as well like access to finance for example. Often developers for traditional housing developments find it hard to get finance at a reasonable interest rate. Cllr Pat English said Clonmel Borough District looks forward to welcoming new people moving to

Clonmel to take up jobs at Boston Scientific. But he noted there is a very serious problem with housing availability as very little private house building is going on in the town.

He urged developers who have planning permission for new housing schemes in Clonmel to get building.

“There is a good bit of social housing being built but there is a serious need for private housing too.

“There are a lot of people looking for private housing. There is an open market for developers to start building. There is an awful lot of planning permissions but they are not being worked on,” he added.