The business community in Birr, Co Offaly, has decided to tackle local unemployment head on by building a new advance factory in the town.
Before Christmas, the sod-turning ceremony was carried out by the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, at the factory site on the Kinnitty Road.
The factory, which will cost £1 million when completed, is the idea of local business people who were involved in the industrial sub-committee of the Birr Chamber of Commerce.
These include Mr Sean Loughnane, president of the chamber of commerce, Mr Seamus Pierce, manager of the Bank of Ireland, Mr Peter Fox, a pharmacist in the town, and Mr Brendan Garry, a local property developer.
The promoters are hoping for an overall investment above £1 million in the two-acre site, which has been purchased from Offaly County Council.
According to Mr Pierce, the intention is to raise £1 million via the issue of ordinary shares through investors under the Business Expansion Scheme.
"We thought it was time to get some suitable industry into Birr because we seem to be falling behind in the industrial jobs stakes," said Mr Pierce this week.
"The employment figures in Birr do not seem to be following the national trend and it was time to do something about it.
"The industrial committee of the chamber came up with the idea of building an advance factory unit and it was not as easy as we thought it might have been. Now, after all the lobbying, we do have a BES scheme ready and we hope it will be backed by the local community, especially because the IDA seems to think there will be no problem finding a suitable tenant."
Mr Pierce said he was very pleased at the development because Birr was the only place in the Shannon region to receive the green light to build an advance factory in 1998. The 20,000 sq foot factory on the Syngefield Industrial Estate would hopefully prove attractive to industrialists aiming to locate in the area.
He said the promoters hoped the factory could be built and ready for a tenant within 18 months. He hoped local people would invest in the factory, adding that details of how this could be done could be obtained from the Tullamore-based accountancy firm John Shanahan, O'Connor Square.