Push for tenant for Carrick factory site
- Veronica Corr -
Pressure is being put on the State and authorities to secure a new tenant for the former Bose/Newbaze plant in Carrickmacross, which is on the market.
Cllr Colm Carthy and his Sinn Féin colleagues flagged the issue at last week’s meeting of the Carrickmacross–Castleblayney Municipal District.
They want to see action from Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Peter Burke, and the IDA Chief Executive Michael Lohan.
The councillors are asking for a progress report on actions taken to date. Bose, a headphone manufacturing giant, closed its doors in Carrickmacross in May 2015 with the loss of 140 jobs. The operations were transferred to facilities in Malaysia and Mexico.
Newbaze, a Chinese food production company, occupied the building in late 2019 with the intention of capitalising on the fast-growing demand for baby formula in China.
In introducing the motion, Cllr Carthy lamented that the lights are no longer on outside the building in the town’s IDA industrial estate at night, although he reported a small bit of activity was still going on there.
The baby formula business that occupied the building didn’t come to fruition in the way everyone hoped it would. The factory was publicly opened to great fanfare in 2019, Cllr Carthy stated, adding that elected reps couldn’t just sit back and wait for something to happen.
“We need to be encouraging the sale, the plant was finished off to a very high standard," he said, adding that there are quite a few businesses looking for premises.
Cllr Noel Keelan highlighted the central location of the building and its potential. He asked if the local authority could buy it.
Fianna Fáil's P.J. O’Hanlon commented that little appeared to happen until Minister of State Niamh Smyth got involved, then they found out that the building was on the market. He expressed his disappointment that letters sent previous to this had not received responses.
He attended meetings on the issue with Minister Smyth and highlighted the importance of keeping the pressure on Enterprise Ireland. He said that he had also brought up Barford Meats site in the same industrial estate, which had been idle for 20 years. There was a follow-up meeting planned in the coming weeks too.
Fine Gael’s Peter Conlon revealed that Minister Smyth, Deputy David Maxwell, Cllr Aidan Campbell and himself had met with Minister Burke, who said that the company had pre-conditions, which had to be met before they would sell. The building was far from derelict, he said, adding that State agencies and private entities were involved in trying to find a solution. He urged all of his MD colleagues to lobby their Oireachtas representatives and to “keep the foot down to get a resolution".
The motion was unanimously supported.