The commitment by Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Ltd (GIIL) to establish a state of the art processing facility at Belview, on the Kilkenny: Waterford border gets special mention into the end-of-year review statement, published by Enterprise Ireland. Over the past 12 months Enterprise Ireland supported companies created 18,033 new jobs in 2013.
The GIIL investment alone will help create 1600 direct and indirect jobs and contribute an estimated €400m per annum to the economy – with particular benefit to farm families and rural communities. Through Enterprise Ireland, the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation will part-fund the new facility.
GIIL is Ireland’s leading dairy ingredients company – processing 1.6 billion litres of milk or 30 per cent of Ireland’s milk pool into a range of dairy ingredients for export to more than 50 countries. All produce from the new facility will be destined for export markets.
Other food investment highlights of 2013 included the ongoing expansion announced at Green Farm Foods in Co Westmeath, O’Brien Fine Fods in Co Kildare and Swift Fine Foods in Co Monaghan. A combined €9m investment by the three businessesd will lead to the creation of an extra 134 jobs in the Irish economy.
According to Enterprise Ireland, this continuation of employment growth demonstrates clearly the direct impact that increasing exports has on jobs in Ireland. Enterprise Ireland supported companies now, directly and indirectly, account for more than 300,000 jobs in the Irish economy, 16 per cent of total workforce.
Total direct employment (full and part time) in Enterprise Ireland client companies stood at 175,750 in 2013. Of these, 149,718 are full-time jobs, while 26,032 are part-time. Source: The Annual Employment Survey carried out by Forfás. The final 2013 report will be published in early 2014.
