SIGNS AND flags erected two years ago to welcome visitors to Tralee as a major pharmaceutical centre should be taken down, according to local politicians.
The Global Pharmaceutical Centre of Excellence project, which it was said would bring 50 small to medium-sized businesses in pharmaceutical research and up to 5,000 jobs to Tralee, was unveiled two years ago.
Last year in an all-out bid to secure the announcement, flags and giant signs welcoming the project to Tralee were erected near Kerry airport and at the entrance to Tralee.
However, the jobs have failed to materialise, and Senator Marie Moloney (Labour) yesterday called for the flags and signs to be taken down. She said the prospect of “thousands of thousands of jobs” had seen people ringing politicians wondering where they would send their CVs but these jobs had not materialised.
The whole thing had been “blown out of proportion” from the start.
Fine Gael Tralee councillor Mairead Fernane also called for the removal of the flags, saying they had become “an eyesore”.
Last March in a day-long series of presentations more than 280 jobs were announced by three international companies in biomedicine, drug-testing and pharmaceutical research.
The planned jobs were to be based temporarily in an existing building in the town. However, it afterwards emerged that Tralee was likely to lose out to Derry.
A planning application was also to be submitted for a major centre near the Institute of Technology Tralee, it was indicated last March.
A spokesman for the project could not be contacted last night.