IDA Ireland is losing investment by major computer hardware manufacturers to Britain because of a lack of infrastructure and cash, Fianna Fail said yesterday.
The party's leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, accused the authorities of lacking the commitment to the hardware sector of the electronics industry and called for fresh decisions.
Speaking at the opening of the electronic industries exhibition in the RDS in Dublin, Mr Ahern said that electronics and associated industries was one of the few areas in which manufacturing jobs were still growing, and he agreed with the tactic of targeting such jobs. He noted that indigenous Irish software companies had proved highly successful in recent years.
"However, I have recently had cause to wonder how deep our level of commitment is to this industry," Mr Ahern continued.
Software represents only one part of the electronics industry, he said, while the other major part was hardware, including microelectronics, and electronic and system assembly.
"These doubts arise in large measure through our failure over the past 18 months to attract any of the large mobile electronics investments. These companies all considered Ireland as a location, and then by passed us in favour of sites in the UK. The companies included two from Korea, one from Japan and Siemens from Germany," Mr Ahern said.
He said he did not accept the IDA view that these projects were lost purely because development authorities offered bigger financial incentives "The reason Ireland lost these industries was probably a combination of both our unwillingness to invest a large amount of money, together with the fact that the necessary infrastructure and training facilities were not in place."
Education, research and, especially, training facilities for the electronics industry were cited by the companies as major factors in their decisions, Mr Ahern said.
"We need to be prepared to take decisions to make major investments in these industries and, above all, we need to take decisions to put in place the necessary infrastructure which this industry feels is lacking in Ireland at the moment," he urged. "If we do not do this, we are letting great opportunities for job creation pass us by."
