‘We don’t have the luxury of doing nothing’ Laois council CEO defends multi million business park

The multi-million investment by Laois County Council to create an enterprise park and bring jobs to Laois, has been defended by the county manager, after one councillor questioned the finance.

On the same day that councillors approved sale of the fourth serviced site at J17 National Enterprise Park, to an Irish company for over €1 million and a promise of 50 jobs, the council CEO John Mulholland gave a passionate rebuttal to criticism that he should be charging more for the sites. 

The council bought the greenfield site from Supermac's in 2017 and has so far spent €7.2 million of public money in laying out roads, lights, water services and electricity connections. The aim is to sell all the sites for companies to build units on, with some 360 jobs already in the pipeline from companies who invested.

“When you leave work on a Friday evening you are thinking ‘how are we capable of making bad news out of good news?’. The decision to invest in junction 17 was really a milestone in 2017. We were not of the view there would be such a rapid response but it surprised us all,” John Mulholland said at the February council meeting.

“Had we not taken the path we took in 2017, there would be a cheese factory in Belgium now instead of it being in Portlaoise. They have 100 workers there at the moment and are exceedingly happy in the way the business is going on,” he said.

That site of over 2ha was sold for €925,000 plus VAT, but the prices of the remaining land will be higher as the park is attracting increased business interest the CEO said.

“You need to get a critical mass in the first place to make it attractive. You can’t start off and pitch the price way up there, you would scare them all away.

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“Because of the expenditure we incurred, we will hit the reset button and look at what prices the market could sustain. Initially we pitched sites at the IDA prices on the Mountrath Road  of €185,000 per hectare and that worked to bring a first flush of businesses. People are seeing what happened and there is a huge energy and interest in it,” Mr Mulholland said.

“Now we are looking to see what more can we do, more land, more facilities. There’s one thing for certain, the state had invested €650 million in Laois over the decades, on the Portlaoise bypass and water supplies and building schools. What does that say?

“At some point you have to see there is a huge demand ,” he said.

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“There's a value of €200 million in this county on social houses alone. We have to cater for the ambitions of young people who are going to deliver jobs, opportunity and innovation in this county. 

“We are quite confident in terms of what we spend, we will get it back in the sale of land and development levies. I mentioned this in May as well. 

“We are in the fortunate position that we can sell land at a good price, but we can set our own development levies to cover the cost of infrastructure.” 

He said they footed the cost for installing water, waste water, roads, gas and electricity because “nobody else is going to do it”.

“We are that way motivated. We want to make an impact in local economic development. We will continue to do it and we will work with Enterprise Ireland, the IDA, businesses and landowners.  We don’t have the luxury of doing nothing. It comes with risks, we look at it as a management team,” the council CEO said.

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He was responding to comments from Cllr Aisling Moran, who requested and got detailed financial information on the park’s development. She posed multiple further questions and requested more figures about the enterprise park. 

She also unsuccessfully proposed to stop the sale of a €1 million site to Kirby Group, but no councillor had seconded her proposal.

“To break even we need to charge more money [for sites]. I am for business for the record. This is about transparency and accountability for the best use of public money,” Cllr Moran said.