Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 March 2017
13. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation further to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 634 and 635 of 21 February 2017, the number of employees at each of the IDA Ireland business and technology parks and landbanks in north Dublin; her plans for business parks in Fingal and north Dublin; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14414/17]
View answer39. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation further to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 634 and 635 of 21 February 2017, her plans for the greenfield site and Belcamp business and tech park; the tenants that she is hoping to attract to the area; the timeframe in which she will have the park operational; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14411/17]
View answerI just want to follow up on a previous question I asked the Minister about Clonshaugh industrial estate and the proposed Belcamp industrial park in the north fringe. As the Minister knows it is a critical area of the northside. In light of some of the earlier, very passionate, speeches I am very much in favour of regional development. I support all possible jobs for Roscommon, Sligo and other parts of the country because we need to reach the whole county, but I am focusing on this. I think we have about 100 acres there. It is a greenfield site. There was an illegal dump on it, which had been cleared. IDA Ireland has owned it for approximately 15 years. Are we going to move on that and start creating jobs there?
I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 and 39 together.
IDA Ireland owns five business parks and one greenfield site in north Dublin. The agency also markets a business park in Blanchardstown which has been developed as a joint venture with Fingal County Council. There are 696 IDA Ireland client companies in Dublin. I understand that the agency does not track the number of people the Deputy asked about in each park.
I am informed that in 1997, IDA Ireland acquired approximately, as the Deputy said, 48 ha at Belcamp in north Dublin. In 2001, a waste landfill covering approximately 1.5 ha was found at the site. Investigations revealed that the illegal dumping in this area occurred in the early 1980s. The agency's current objective is to remediate the land affected by the dumping.
In January 2015, IDA Ireland completed a freehold sale of around 2 ha of the lands unaffected by the waste, to the ESB. The balance of the unaffected land has been master-planned as a data centre hub and is currently being marketed to the agency’s clients.
I have asked IDA Ireland’s property development department to make itself available to meet with Deputy Broughan should he wish to discuss these matters in more detail.
I would be delighted to do that and I welcome that. I also hope that the IDA will liaise with all our local agencies, particularly with Fingal County Council, as it is in Fingal, under manager Paul Reid. I hope it will liaise with Dublin City Council, Dublin City University, the education and training board and all the other agencies, in particular some of the local development agencies. I am thinking in particular of Coolock Development Council, of which I have a been a board member for the past 30 years.
Vis-à-vis recent discussion, probably the greatest head IDA Ireland ever had was Padraic White. Padraic voluntarily chaired our council for the past 27 years and was fantastic help to the north Coolock area and the general northside area in liaising with local business in Clonshaugh and so on. We want to keep these linkages.
A few weeks ago I was at the 40th anniversary dinner of Allergan. Allergan is an amazing American company on which the Taoiseach made a very good speech. Allergan is in Westport and in Coolock, with two major facilities employing a couple of thousand workers. That is the kind of thing we need to encourage into the future. We are very anxious to have Belcamp, which used to be called the Fingal industrial park, going ahead in this region where maybe another 25 or 30 homes are going to be built, it is hoped, over the next few years.
Swords will grow to a city of, perhaps, 100,000 people given the second runway and so on. We need the industrial park.
The Minister is aware that I have put forward a proposal in regard to 29 acres of land owned by the State that is available for a business park at Killgarry in Cavan. I put forward a specific proposal in regard to the possibility of locating a new data centre there. It has the acreage and infrastructure from the point of view of telecommunications, water, sewerage and the road network. I appeal to the Minister to intercede with IDA Ireland. It is an ideal piece of infrastructure to attract inward investment to a region that needs it.
I will take on board the issue raised by Deputy Smith and will talk to IDA Ireland about the data centre.
In response to Deputy Broughan, I have met the Fingal county manager, Mr. Paul Reid, to discuss development issues in Fingal. He sits on the Dublin regional action plan for jobs, which is an important driver of growth in north Dublin. I am very aware of the five business parks and greenfield site in Dublin, many of which are located near the Deputy's constituency. They include Blanchardstown, the Swords business park, Clonshaugh business park and the Belcamp business park, to which the Deputy has referred.
Fingal and south county Dublin own two further sites which are used by IDA Ireland, namely, the IDA Ireland college business park in Blanchardstown, which is overseen by Fingal County Council, and the Grange Castle strategic site in south County Dublin. I will meet Mr. Reid very soon. He is a very competent chief executive of the county council. I will make sure we discuss the matter to which the Deputy referred.
