IDA Ireland will spend “significantly more” than €100 million to develop the first of three planned “next generation sites” around the State, according to Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke. It is understood to be targeting the computer chip sector.
The agency, charged with sourcing foreign direct investment for the State, plans to “develop up to three significantly larger scale, pre-permitted developments” in regional locations, it disclosed in a five-year programme published in February.
Speaking in advance of Enterprise Ireland’s Food Innovation Summit in Croke Park, on Wednesday, the Minister said the cost of acquiring the sites would be “very significant”.
“We will be, in the next couple of weeks, bringing a very significant proposal to Cabinet for our first large scale next generation site,” he said, adding that it would be a site in the west of Ireland, capable of attracting a “significant company of scale”.
It would, Mr Burke said, be a “very strong competitive offering” to foreign direct investment.
Asked whether the sites were being earmarked for computer chip manufacturers, the Minister said: “The KPMG report [into the outlook for Ireland’s semiconductor sector] sets out an absolute opportunity here of getting an additional workforce of over 30,000 by 2040, which would be very significant for the sector.
“Right through Covid, we saw significant blockages in manufacturing. We saw the automotive sector brought to a standstill. Why? Because of a lack of chips. Chips are so important to the digital economy.
“Obviously, the geography of Ireland is very attuned to semiconductor activity, but also need utilities and you need a very significant capacities, and infrastructure,” he said.
The Government is looking at “putting together a war chest for two more additional sites” with pathways to be “utilities rich” in tandem with the National Development Plan Review, the Minister said.
“The cost will be very significant” given the cost of achieving utility connections with “the way the site is structured”, he said, though he declined to go into specifics on cost of the first site.
Asked if it would be more than €100 million, the Minister said: “Oh, very significantly more than that.”
He emphasised the importance of the chips industry for the Irish economy stressing it is a “very significant sector” in which “about 120 companies now operate in” which has growth to employ more than 20,000 people in Ireland.
“We need strategic forward planning to enhance our offer to investors,” the IDA said. “Ireland must fundamentally reposition its offering to develop a select number of significantly larger-scale solutions in order to be competitive in attracting the next generation of very large-scale, sustainable, capital-intensive FDI.”
IDA chief executive Michael Lohan said the sites would be between 500 and 1,000 acres in size but had not yet been identified.
The IDA specified that the sites in question would come with the “advantages of clarity on infrastructure provision, costs, and shorter project timelines – providing the certainty that businesses need when making major investment decisions."
It said the delivery of the ‘next-generation sites’ will require a “whole-of-Government commitment” and a new funding and operating model, in its strategy.
