IDA is charged with investigating potential sites around the country for investment – Kildare has been ignored in recent years

At last week’s council meeting I called on the new CEO of Kildare County Council, Peter Carey to make working with the IDA in encouraging more site visits to the county one of his top priorities.

One of the roles of the IDA is to conduct site visits in conjunction with county councils around the country in a bid to identify areas suitable for investment and new enterprise development. At the meeting I made the point that in 2012 and 2013 Dublin received 376 site visits while in the same period Kildare had just 2. This puts us at the bottom end of the list nationally.

Kildare has proven itself as an excellent location for Foreign Direct Investment in the past and with its young educated workforce and excellent transport links, is a prime location for further investment into the future.

It’s clear that in order to encourage long term, sustainable economic development in Kildare, we need more investment and more jobs coming into the county. It’s unrealistic to expect existing businesses to pay more rates or add to their existing workforce substantially in the short term. However, if we can bring new businesses into the county then we can expect improvements to both employment levels and the rates base. In order to do this, we need to work with the IDA and encourage more site visits.