IDA asks engineers to hunt for sites near Limerick
THE IDA, the agency responsible for the attraction and retention of inward foreign direct investment to Ireland, wants to identify at least five potential strategic sites in the Mid-West region around Limerick.
The agency is planning to engage engineers to scour the area for greenfield sites, each of which will need to be between 50 and 100 hectares.
The new sites across the Mid West, which are to be located close to Limerick, are to be suitable for accommodating the development of large-scale utility intensive industries such as bio-pharmaceutical and life sciences projects, the agency says.
As reported last week in the Irish Independent, the IDA is also looking for five potential sites in Cork across sectors such as life sciences and data centres.
A spokeswoman for the IDA confirmed the agency is looking to identify suitable sites for economic development across both the South West and the Mid West.
“IDA Ireland’s Property Division regularly undertakes engineering assessments to identify landbanks suitable for future development from an access, services, zoning and infrastructure perspective,” she said. “It is part of our long-term, strategic planning process.”
Regarding the level of investment the new sites could represent for the region, the spokeswoman said it would be “impossible to quantify”.
“There are many variables around cost of acquiring the land and level of investment needed to address infrastructural and services needs which would vary from site to site as well as future potential client investments,” she said.
The IDA, whose chief executive is Martin Shanahan, has strategic sites in 12 regional locations across Ireland.