Carlow received a major boost yesterday with the announcement of a €200 million investment and 170 new jobs by Merck, the world's seventh largest pharmaceutical company.
The US company already employs 460 people in Ireland at a manufacturing facility in Clonmel, Co Tipperary and corporate headquarters at the South County Dublin Business Park in Leopardstown.
Micheál Martin, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment said the global competition for this investment had been "intense" and the decision to locate it in Ireland followed "an international site selection study by Merck".
He welcomed the announcement as "a very significant consolidation of Ireland's high-profile position as a successful location for substantial biotechnology global investments".
Merck will build a plant to develop and manufacture human vaccines - the first of its kind in Ireland. The company is acquiring a 65-acre IDA business and technology park off the Dublin Rd on the northern outskirts of Carlow town which has lain idle since it was launched seven years ago.
In addition to creating "several hundred jobs" during the construction phase, Merck expects to employ a "skilled and technically-sophisticated workforce" of 170 people by 2011. The Minister said the "overall ripple effect created by such a substantial investment" could also stimulate further job creation in the southeast.
The news comes as a relief to political and business leaders in Carlow which has suffered a series of high-profile job losses in recent years. The Greencore sugar factory closed in 2005, followed this year by the German-owned Lapple engineering plant and there is an ongoing redundancy programme at the Braun factory.
Jacqui McNabb, chief executive officer of Carlow Chamber of Commerce, said: "We kissed a lot of frogs before we got this prince" and noted that "it is 32 years since there was a major IDA jobs announcement in Carlow town".
Merck vice-president Dr John McCubbins said the company chose Ireland for the investment because of the "skilled people, support infrastructure and track record in implementing projects of this scale". Merck was "very excited about coming to Carlow", which he described as "one of the fastest growing towns in Ireland" with "an excellent Institute of Technology capable of supplying the necessary skills . . . competitively-priced housing . . . and, a deep commitment to economic development".
