A multinational fire and security company which pulled its manufacturing plant out of Cork in 2008 leaving a skeleton crew of 30 has announced its intention to create more than 500 positions in Leeside over the next three years.

Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton yesterday announced that Tyco International planned to establish a business services centre in Cork.

Speaking at Hayfield Manor in the city yesterday, Mr Bruton said: "Six years ago people were saddened to hear that Tyco was leaving Cork. But it did leave an outpost of about 30 people in Cork, who built strong relationships with the Cork Institute of Technology [CIT] and, if you like, the other stakeholders in the Cork community.

Fantastic day
"This is a fantastic day – when that persistence has realised this fantastic decision to locate a business services centre here," he said.

Catherine Bennett, vicepresident of Tyco International's global public affairs, said the services centre in Cork would enable the company to improve its efficiency of processes in several central support functions, including sourcing and procurement, customer service, R&D, information technology and finance.

Announcement
Tyco Ireland managing director Donal Sullivan said the jobs announcement was a "wonderful rebound story".

“For us it is a tremendous day. We have had some not so good days. We kept the footprint here in Cork and CIT were very helpful to us. We kept a footprint to see if there were other possibilities we could exploit in time, ” Mr Sullivan said.

When Tyco closed its plant in Bishopstown, Cork, in 2008 320 people lost their jobs.

Tyco, founded in 1960 in the US, is one of the world’s largest fire safety and security companies.

It employs 69,000 people in nearly 50 countries. Its company corporate headquarters is in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. It has more than three million customers worldwide.

The Cork project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland.