Green Party candidate for Westport Town Council Fergus McAllister said that announcements this week of over 400 green jobs in the west should be a wake-up call to Westport that it must get serious about targeting green collar jobs if it wants to realistically overcome the present crisis and be competitive into the future.
Over the past week, 180 jobs were announced in Claremorris by Bio-spark. In addition, a further 250 jobs in Athenry, Galway, were announced by engineering group C&F which has developed a wind turbine that can generate power in low wind speeds.
“The only new jobs being announced in Ireland are green jobs located in the West,” McAllister said. “Westport must wake up to the reality that this is the way forward. We are ideally placed to be a hub for clean digital and greentech companies. We must be as proactive about attracting this type of business to town as we have been in attracting tourists.
“I am the only candidate talking about green collar jobs. It is the central plank of my election manifesto for the town. Other candidates are still talking vaguely about job creation. Vague is no good in a time of crisis. We need specifics, we need definite targets. We also need to ensure that the town is set up for these targets.”
McAllister said that he had spoken to one technology company, on-line college Hibernia College, which already employs 30 people on James Street. Its IT manager said that its greatest delay in relocating to Westport was finding a premises that was suited to the needs of an IT company. Hibernia also said that it knew of at least two or three other technology based companies interested in moving west. Their choices would be Galway city or Westport. A deciding factor would be the availability of walk-in premises suited to office use at reasonable costs.
McAllister predicts that Westport could create at least 150 new jobs over the coming 18 months if it got serious about marketing itself as a digital and greentech hub and then provided the premises and supports needed by these companies.
“We have it all going for us. We have excellent broadband. We are located on the west coast where wind and wave research will be located. And we have an extremely attractive town where people want to live and work,” he said.
