With the National Spatial Strategy and the National Development Plan trumpeting the value of regional development, Shannon Development has reached a new plateau in its 44-year existence.
Kevin Thompstone, more than two months into the job as the company's chief executive following the sudden departure of Paul Sheane last year, believes Shannon Development has been about more than dodging Government reviews of overlapping State agencies, last carried out in 1998 with the formation of Enterprise Ireland. Shannon Development is "the State's regional development laboratory", he says.
"It was not a question of escaping restructuring elsewhere. It is recognition that there was value to be had, particularly when regional competitiveness is critical."
The son of a mining engineer, Mr Thompstone has been with Shannon Development for the past 16 years. The company's brief now, he says, is to generate knowledge and wealth creation. But whether it is attracting industry into the region in the 1960s or developing knowledge-based start-ups 40 years later, Shannon Airport has remained a constant as a key part of the local infrastructure.
Thompstone recently fired his first broadside as chief executive when he called for a fresh look at the airport's management. Aer Rianta is Dublin-focused with a brief to maximise profits.
"The concern that we have is, with a group structure run from Dublin, with the best will in the world you are going to have a group perspective when you decide what is the appropriate position of Shannon Airport or, for that matter, Cork Airport.
"The point we have been making is, 'What if we had a different model?' What if you said, 'Keep the airport in State ownership but have it run by a special purpose regional company with its own regional board made up of tourism/business interests, representational interests from around the region and give that board the brief to drive the growth of that airport to maximise economic development in the west of Ireland?' "
Shannon Development, in fact, had a role in attracting services into the airport. Would he like to get back in there again? "As CEO of Shannon Development, this is not about Shannon Development taking over the airport," he says.
"I know nothing about running airports. The operation of airports is a different business from the development business which is the core of what Shannon Development is about."
The question marks raised over the airport drew a quick and uncharacteristic reply from Aer Rianta Shannon, which rejected any notion of a reconstituted board, said Mr Martin Moroney, head of commercial development, Shannon. "The key to the airport's success has been that it is part of a strong airport group which had sufficient resources to develop Shannon Airport based on its commercial approach."
However, the clamour locally for a changed structure is growing, although many commentators believe the airport would be starved for cash if the Aer Rianta link was severed.
Mr Thompstone, too, is a strong advocate of State investment in infrastructure. He argues that the private sector's urge to generate a quick profit precludes it from being a part of regional development. "Look at our experience of broadband connectivity. We actually have broadband connectivity to the regions but effectively what you have is a duopoly. You have Eircom and you have Esat. They control the pricing.
"Based on the information the companies are giving us, it is just not competitive."
He has just come through a strategy development process over the past year after being appointed acting chief executive in the wake of Paul Sheane's departure in August 2000.
The issues now are less about solving unemployment, he says, and more about skills availability, infrastructure deficiencies and regional competitiveness.
"The vision for the region going forward as we see it is, 'We want to make this region a world class place in which to live, to learn, to work and to spend your leisure time'. You need world class business environments, hence the emphasis we put on the knowledge network."
A key part of that approach has been the development of technology "nodes" in key towns around the region, which stretches from north Kerry to south Offaly. This follows on the development of the National Technological Park in Limerick, the State's "first and only" science park built in conjunction with the University of Limerick.
It now has 80 companies employing 4,000 people and the model has been "rolled out" to parks being developed in Tralee, Tipperary, Birr and Ennis. "We also need those to be connected into the world via broadband connectivity. That is why we are putting together a consortium with other local authorities in the region to address the problem of getting broadband access at competitive prices."
But why shouldn't Enterprise Ireland fight those battles? Shannon Development's raison d'etre has been a question Mr Thompstone raised on taking office 16 months ago. "We have asked ourselves that question here. That was the starting question in reviewing our strategy. And I would be the first to say there is no reason for Shannon Development to exist as an economic development company unless we are adding value. So the question is, 'What is the value that we are adding to the equation?'."
Emerging from the biggest economic boom ever, the figures for the past decade indicate that there are 6,000 more people now working in the Shannon Free Zone and in Shannon Development-assist Irish business throughout the region than there were at the beginning of the nineties. The self-financing company had a turnover of £68 million (€86 million) last year and a "retained surplus" of £7.3 million.
"We do what any private sector company would do. You get your initial seed capital from the shareholder and the job of the board and management of the company is to invest that wisely so you can generate a return to keep the company going."
So should everybody have a regional development company? "We think there is a sustainable case to be made for delegating responsibility for generating regional competitiveness to regions," he says.
Similar to his view on Aer Rianta's "group perspective", he says that to a Dublin-based development agency, a regional focus means looking at Cork, Limerick, Waterford or Galway. "If you are based in Limerick and you are responsible for a geographic area, and somebody says, 'Talk about regional development', that means Limerick, Shannon, Ennis, Tralee, Tipperary. That is the difference."
He argues that the company has been able to leverage its asset base for investment in areas where no private company has gone before. "The development of Kilrush Creek Marina is bearing fruit, the new marina at Limerick will work and the King John's Castle renovations will eventually entice the private sector in.
"Bunratty today is consistently in the top three visitor attractions in the country. When that was starting out in 1960, there were loads of people queuing up saying it would never work. That's life in the economic development business. If things were to happen overnight without problems, the private sector would be doing them."
The company is proud of its achievement in securing the Greg Norman-inspired £22.4 million golf links at Doonbeg, which is due to open next year. As an example of a tourist project driven by foreign investors in an economically marginalised area, it is unique. It will result in an estimated annual £11 million spend by golfers throughout the region.
"They do not come to a country just to play one course half a dozen or ten times. They will also want to experience Ballybunion, Tralee, Lahinch, Dromoland.
"What we are doing is reinforcing the world class necklace of golf courses that we have here in the west of Ireland."
Mr Thompstone did European Studies in what was then NIHE, Limerick, now the University of Limerick, topping it off with a masters in social research. In summer, 1985, he joined Shannon Development. He describes his personal vision for the firm as doing the smart thing rather than the "glick" thing. "I would be a strong believer in team work. I know it seems like a clichΘ but I know we have very skilled, talented and energetic people here in the company. We get our best results when we work across functional boundaries both within the company and outside the company."
