18/01/2006
Archived item. This item is published here for historical reasons. The information below may be out of date.
IDA Ireland to seek advance planning permission for Integrated Circuit Manufacturing and Research Campus at Grange Castle Business Park
Clondalkin, Dublin 22
IDA Ireland, today (17th January 2006) announced its intention to seek advanced planning permission for an Integrated Circuit Manufacturing and Research Campus at Grange Castle Business Park in Clondalkin, Dublin 22 from South Dublin County Council Council.
Seeking pre-approved planning permission, in advance of specific need, is a significant part of IDA Ireland’s international marketing strategy. Following an approval, IDA Ireland, through its network of overseas offices, plans to actively market Grange Castle and its advanced planning permission to leading global businesses in the Information Technology and Biopharma industries throughout the world.
Ireland must compete against other highly attractive global locations for investment. Our key strengths include a highly educated and flexible workforce, our corporate taxation and a pro-business environment. However, in this intensely competitive global market, IDA Ireland is constantly seeking new ways for Ireland to achieve a significant competitive advantage to attract investment. One way of creating such an advantage is to have ready-made locations available for new strategic business investments.
This initiative is not new. IDA has always pursued a policy of having sites and buildings prepared in advance of need to support its inward investment marketing. For example, in November 2005 IDA Ireland obtained advance planning permission for a major BioPharma Campus at Oranmore from Galway County Council in order to advance Ireland’s position as a location for future investment from leading global players in this sector.
The Grange Castle application is similar in nature. IDA Ireland is seeking to build on Ireland’s success as a major centre for the global IT industry by attracting a major integrated circuit manufacturing project to Ireland. Such a high value and knowledge intensive investment would copper-fasten Ireland’s leading position in this regard as well as have the potential to create a substantial number of new direct and indirect jobs and contribute hundreds of millions of euro annually to the Irish economy.
Following a thorough analysis of the needs of the integrated circuit manufacturing industry, the Grange Castle site and the West Dublin area has been selected as a highly attractive location for such an investment.
The Grange Castle site has been a key component of the Dublin Regional and Local Development plans for almost 10 years. South Dublin County Council had the foresight in the 1990’s to invest over €70 million to establish and develop a world class business park at Grange Castle.
Grange Castle Business Park has been specifically designed and targeted for large scale, high value strategic investments with ample water, wastewater and power capacities available on site together with good transport infrastructure for staff working there.
West Dublin has a large local population and is already home to many of the world’s leading companies such as Wyeth BioPharma and Takeda. It is close to some of Ireland’s leading universities and institutes of technology and a highly skilled workforce in the surrounding area.
In addition, the location has good access to major road, rail, air and sea transport links. It is in close proximity to the N4, N7 and M50 road arteries. Planned transport infrastructure includes a number of direct public transport links to the Business Park, a direct rail link planned for nearby Kishogue and Adamstown and significant road development for the area over the next few years.
IDA Ireland has engaged the services of leading international consultants Jacobs to undertake the design of the Grange Castle Campus. This design conforms to the best practice standards in use in integrated circuit manufacturing facilities in the world today. In this sense, any high tech multinational company choosing to locate on the site in the future should be able to work within the terms of the planning permission and if not, a separate planning application will be required.
Preliminary local pre-planning application consultation is to commence today starting with a briefing of South Dublin County Council at 6pm. Others to be consulted will include public representatives, residents associations, local businesses and other community groups in the area. A telephone information line and Visitor Drop-in Information Centre at Grange Castle will be available to the public. It is expected that the planning application will be lodged with the local authority before the end of January 2006 for a 200,000 square metre facility at Grangecastle.
Sean Dorgan, Chief Executive of IDA Ireland, announcing this initiative stated “In the face of severe global competition for internationally mobile projects, having an attractive site with planning permission in place for a high tech manufacturing and research facility will further enhance Ireland’s ability to win these major strategic investments. We hope that this is the beginning of a process that will see another major, high value, knowledge intensive project locating in Ireland.”
Ends
Public Information:
A detailed information brief is available on IDA Ireland’s website
www.idaireland.com
Media Contact:
Ruth Croke, Press & PR Manager, IDA Ireland
01 6034200 / 087 4195051
Editor’s note:
The proposal
In keeping with its strategy to attract high value leading edge international ICT investment into Ireland, IDA Ireland is seeking planning permission for the development of an advance Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Facility and Research Campus on a 150 acre site at Grange Castle Business Park, in Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
The Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Facility will consist of the following:
• 103,000 square metre 4 storey Integrated Circuit Production Building;
• 13,000 square metre Headquarters Building;
• 39,000 square metre Manufacturing Support Building;
• 12,000 square metre Central Utilities and Water Treatment Building; and
• 20,000 square metre Test and Assembly/Laboratory Building.
In the event that permission is granted and that a suitable client is found by IDA Ireland, it is envisaged that the Campus will be constructed in phases.
A detailed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has been prepared and submitted as part of the planning application.
Given the experience of other such facilities internationally this planning application has the potential to create up to 2,500 jobs.