IBM campus formally opened at Mulhuddart

THE IBM Technology Campus in Mulhuddart, Co Dublin, will generate over £1 million per week in wages when operating at full capacity, the IBM site director, Mr Bob Dunn, said yesterday.

Mr Dunn was speaking on site at the laying of the foundation stone, by the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton. He said that when the campus was fully operational it will purchase over £1.5 million of raw materials and services weekly.

The 100 acre campus was announced last December and the first factory should complete one month's production before the end of this year. The second factory is to go into production in the second quarter of next year. Another six to eight IBM factories are to be built on the campus over the next three to four years.

Mr Bill Garbus, of IBM's real estate and site operations division, said the Mulhuddart development was one of the fastest projects ever achieved by the multinational.

"The eyes of IBM are watching this development very closely and it is a credit to the people within IBM, our partners in Government, the IDA and Fingal County Council that we have achieved so much in such a short space of time," said Mr William Burgess, managing director of IBM Ireland.

Planning permission for the second factory was lodged with Fingal County Council yesterday and will be "fast tracked".

"We're not cutting corners," said Mr Dunn. "We sat down together and we discussed it all the way through. I'd call it a (council/IBM) partnership."

Political payments alarm bell rings at CRH a.g.m.

A spinoff from the Dunnes tribunal may well be an increased disposition by shareholders in major companies to question their board on the level of contributions, if any, to political parties. CRH was first in the firing line this week when, in response to a question from the floor, chairman Tony Barry said that CRH channelled £45,000 to political parties in 1995. No contributions were made last year. The chairman described the financing as "modest", saying that the group viewed payments as supportive of the general democratic system.

Having shown a sleazefree pair of corporate hands the chairman discussed the prospects of putting more money in shareholders' pockets.

While the current financial year should show further growth, the first half may produce something of an earnings blip. However, with the domestic economy buoyant, the group thinks that the Republic's construction sector has the capacity to achieve double digit growth. In profit terms the Republic is CRH's most important market. Last year, the acquisition driven CRH raised pretax profits 20.5 per cent to £193.4 million.