The new Dell Computer plant in Limerick is due to be open by the end of next year, when the recruitment for the 1,700 new jobs will begin in earnest.
President Clinton, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, have both welcomed the £64 million development of a third Irish manufacturing plant by US company. One third of the recruits to the new plant at Raheen, outside Limerick city, will be third-level graduates, the company's senior executives announced in Limerick on Saturday. The expansion, which is ahead of target, should make the company the largest employer in the mid-west region.
The new jobs will be provided "if markets continue to grow as expected, and providing economic stability successfully withstands current tensions", the company added. To mark the announcement, shortly before President Clinton's visit, Dell Ireland said it intended to give 100 personal computers to the community in Omagh. The gift is in response to the US government's request to corporate America to support the Omagh people after the recent bombing, which claimed its 29th victim at the weekend, and, according to Mr Jan Gesmar-Larsen, president of Dell Europe, Middle East and Africa, the company would work with the community to "maximise the impact of this equipment". Dell already employs 3,500 people in Ireland. While some of these are temporary, the new jobs aim to be permanent, Mr Padraic Allen, chief executive of Dell Ireland, said at the press conference. Indirectly, the company also has a substantial impact on the regional economy, with over $200 million spent annually on purchases of parts.
Referred to in President Clinton's public address in Limerick, the company's announcement was also welcomed by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, who attended the press conference along with Mr Kieran McGowan, chief executive of the IDA, and Mr Paul Sheane, chief executive of Shannon Development. Mr Ahern thanked his Cabinet colleague, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, for her own participation in the project, and said that it was "a big day for Limerick, a big day for Dell, but most of all, a big day for Ireland". The new facility would bring Dell's total manufacturing area to "an astonishing one million square feet", Mr Ahern said.
Asked if there was a danger that this could be another corporation that might "come and go", Mr McGowan, acknowledged that the technological sector was changing rapidly. There were "always risks", he said, but these were minimised with a leading company. Dell was one of the largest in the field, with annual sales of $15 billion compared to a revenue of under $1 billion when it came to Ireland initially in 1991, he noted.
Dell Europe's president, Mr Gesmar-Larsen, said that the company still only had 9.5 per cent of the market share of personal computers, and there was still 90.5 per cent out there. The industry was growing at the rate of 80 to 90 per cent, he said.
Already, 80 per cent of the targeted employment increase in Ireland over five years had been achieved in the first year with this new development.
Mr Sheane said that Dell had made full use of the infrastructure in Limerick, including the national technological park. The announcement was a perfect endorsement of the business environment in Ireland, and in the Limerick region - "fiscally, infrastructurally and in the quality and availability of staff".
