Waterford's business community expressed its bitter disappointment yesterday after the city lost out to Swansea in the race for a 1,200-job Cable and Wireless Communications call centre.
The development would have been a major boost to the city, not just because of the number of jobs involved, but because it is exactly the type of enterprise the IDA is trying to attract to the region.
The south-east has failed to date to get a significant share of the rapidly-expanding call centre industry.
A significant factor in the Cable and Wireless decision to choose Swansea over Waterford was the availability of a large enough premises in the Welsh city for the company to begin recruiting immediately. It plans to open in October with 400 staff, with a further 800 full-time and part-time jobs added over the following 18 months.
A possible site had been identified in Waterford - the 100,000 sq. ft former Waterford Crystal lighting ware factory - but this would have taken too long for the company to convert into a premises suitable for its purposes.
A spokesman for Cable and Wireless Communications, Mr Bob Thomas, however, said the decision to opt for Swansea had been "very tight".
He added: "In terms of the arrangements and the demographics and the logistics, Swansea just pipped Waterford."
The chief executive of Waterford Chamber of Commerce, Mr Frank O'Donoghue, said the decision was "terribly disappointing, particularly as this is the ideal type of business that Waterford needs". But Mr Pat Loftus, the IDA's south-east regional manager, said the fact that Waterford had come so close on this occasion showed they were pursuing the right strategy in trying to bring such enterprises to the region.
Rejecting a suggestion that the unavailability of a large enough premises would continue to be a problem in the future, he said it was highly unusual for a company to want to develop such a large-scale operation in a short space of time.
"Normally, they would be quite happy to move into a 25,000 sq. ft building and expand from there. Almost without exception the 25,000 sq. ft unit has worked quite well for us," he said.
He added that, while the lack of a suitable, readily available building in Waterford was the company's stated reason for choosing Swansea, other factors were also likely to have been involved. The fact that the company's customer base was largely in the UK, for example, might also have been an issue.
Cable and Wireless Communications is the largest provider of integrated telecommunications and television services in the UK, and already has customer service centres in Brighton, Manchester and Glasgow.
The Swansea development is part of a £100 million sterling (€154.17 million) investment in its customer service operations this year, and recruitment for the Welsh plant is already getting under way. The company is holding an open day for those interested in part-time posts at two job centres in the city on Saturday.
