“So many people in Mullingar are doing so much to promote this town, so why is there such a lack of interest on the part of the IDA?” asked local TD Robert Troy this week, when he commented on the response he received in the Dáil from the Jobs Minister Richard Bruton regarding IDA visits to Mullingar.
Deputy Troy was told that in the past 18 months, there was just one IDA sponsored visit to Mullingar, with Minister Bruton saying that there had been 16 IDA sponsored visits by potential investors last year. This year (2014), so far the IDA had sponsored 7 visits by investors to the region, but none to Mullingar.
The Minister said the IDA is building an advance manufacturing facility in Athlone, which will provide an enhanced platform to attract foreign direct investment to the region. The Minister claimed that a “project win in one midlands location has a positive impact on the other surrounding areas due to the close proximity of all main locations.”
Deputy Troy described this assertion as not realistic; he pointed out how many industries has been directed to Athlone and Tullamore by the IDA over the past two decades, without any benefits for Mullingar.
“Mullingar should get the same investment as any other town. The IDA can make any claims they like, but only one firm so far – already based in Mullingar, and expanding, the Patterson Pumps firm – is going to Marlinstown IDA Park, which cost millions of euro to buy and develop.
Deputy Troy pointed out that only one potential investor was brought to Mullingar since the beginning of 2013, and over the previous decade, there were hardly any visits to the town.
“How can a company come and see the benefits of Mullingar, when the IDA don’t bring them here?” he asked. “Yet, in Mullingar, so many locals are doing so much trying to promote the town, and you have the Town Team idea working. However, without the IDA playing its part, Mullingar is being left behind the other big towns.” The State is letting Mullingar down, and I don’t think there is any political will at present to give Mullingar any help,” he added.
EIGHT YEARS’ DERELICTION….
As Topic has previously pointed out, since the IDA Business and Technology Park opened eight years ago, intended as a home for what have been called “blue-chip” tenants, it has remained totally unused and gradually, all its faciliities, seating, roads and large-scale water feature, have deteriorated, with moss growing on the seating and weeds growing on the area intended for new tenants. The only “new tenant” was the person to whom the IDA land was rented over the past several years, in order to produce crops of corn.
As far back as December, 2009, when Deputy Willie Penrose (then in opposition) raised the issue in Dáil Éireann, he pointed out that three years after it was opened, the IDA had failed to “attract a major industry to the high-tech, healthcare or financial management areas of the excellently located and well appointed IDA industrial park at Marlinstown.”
The 70-acre site (30 hectares) at Marlinstown cost millions during the Celtic Tiger “era” and there is planning permission for one third of the parkland, with developed roadways, water, sewerage and telecom ducting, seating, bus stops, etc., as already mentioned.
