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A group of employers that includes Nortel Networks, Tellabs, Boston Scientific and Siebel Systems, are petitioning local TDs over the poor infrastructure in the West of Ireland.
The group, which calls itself the Atlantic Technology Corridor (ATC), is made up of 60 companies but also includes the Ennis Information Age Town, Information Technology Association of Galway (ITAG), the American Chamber of Commerce, the Ennis Chamber of Commerce and the Galway Chamber of Commerce.
The organisation's primary complaint is that upgrades to the roads along the Galway-Ennis-Shannon Corridor, specifically the Ennis bypass and the N18, had been promised in recent years but "nothing concrete has been delivered." Moreover, the association said that the future of more than 30,000 jobs and 360 companies across the biomedical and information technology sectors along the West Coast of Ireland are "being threatened by sub-standard infrastructure."
"The N18 Galway-Ennis-Shannon Dual Carriageway has been repeatedly delayed and reprioritised for investment in recent years," said the spokesman for the group and chairman of ITAG, Seamus Kilbane. "With the latest delay, including the deferral of the Ennis bypass, politicians are seriously risking the future of our industries, our employees, our families and the economic viability of this region."
The group said that it is now calling on TDs in Galway and Clare to commit, as part of their election promise, to completing the N18 Dual Carriageway by 2004. Officially, the National Roads Authority has said that upgrades on the roads in the area will start as soon as possible, but Kilbane claims there is now talk that the upgrades will be delayed further.
And much of the concern focuses on accessibility to local airports. Weighing in on the issue, IBEC's west regional director, John Brennan, said the failure to allocate funding for the construction of the Ennis bypass poses a threat to ongoing industrial development and employment in the area. "It remains the strongly held view of industry in the region that improving accessibility to Shannon airport is a priority in the short-term," he said.
"The fact is companies avoid investing and working in the Galway area because realistically you can't get a customer from the UK to Galway and back in one day," Kilbane told ElectricNews.Net. "How can we claim to have a First World economy when we have roads that are from the 19th century; roads laid down by cattle," he added.
The ATC spokesman went on to say that while the broadband debate rages on, broadband on its own will not solve the area's infrastructure problem. "It's like saying 'which would you rather have, clothes or food?'. The truth is we need both." ATC claims that over the next five to 10 years the area will begin to see firms relocate or fail to re-invest unless infrastructure is dramatically improved.
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