WEST Dublin has received a major economic boost following the announcements that IBM is going to build a £220 million campus in Mulhuddart and a new RTC is being built at Blanchardstown.
Both projects will provide much employment, both directly and by introducing new spending power. At the building stage IBM alone is due to provide 1,000 jobs.
Up to 80 per cent of the eventual 2,850 new jobs at IBM will be for graduates. IBM Ireland's managing director Mr William Burgess confirmed yesterday that these jobs would be for employees educated to university or RTC level.
The Taoiseach Mr Bruton yesterday urged people to again examine the advantages of living and locating in west Dublin. He said it was a rapidly growing area and people should look at it in a new way.
Before, people looked at it as if there was some problem with the west side of the city, he said, but plenty of infrastructure had been developed and the RTC would be a major fillip.
The area has a large bank of land available for industrial development, and infrastructure that makes it one of the most accessible locations in Dublin.
"The opening of the M50 [Northern Cross] last week was the crowning glory," says the president of the Blanchardstown Chamber, Mr Dominic Carolan.
The new, 100 acre RTC campus is just two miles outside Blanchardstown and is in an area that has seen its population grow by 42 per cent in five years to 65,000 people.
In October, the Blanchardstown shopping centre was opened, providing 2,000 jobs.
New industry has also invested. Now the hope is that the companies located in the area such as IBM - which already has a plant in Blanchardstown - 3Com, Claris, Creative Laboratories, Thermoking, Fugitsu, and Yamanouchi, will in time be employing local graduates from the RTC.
