IDA becomes 'I can't hear' as Offaly meeting is abandoned

A MUCH anticipated meeting between top IDA officials and Offaly County Council has been postponed again after an attempt to hold it this week was abandoned.

The 'virtual' meeting with regional chiefs from the foreign direct investment (FDI) agency had to be rescheduled when technical difficulties resulted in councillors being unable to hear what was said.

The meeting was originally pencilled in for March or April but due to Covid restrictions it was put back to October.

When councillors convened for their monthly meeting on Monday they were told that Ken Whitelaw, IDA midlands regional manager, Denis Curran, regional development head, and Anne-Marie Tierney-Le Roux, head of regional business development, would be joining them remotely.

The councillors were seated at a distance from each other in the Aras an Chontae chamber and the IDA executives were speaking to them by video link from three different locations.

Mr Whitelaw explained that Mr Curran would be addressing the councillors first, followed by himself.

“I know we tried to get there a couple of times over the summer but unfortunately given the circumstances we all have to live with today that wasn't possible,” said Mr Curran in his opening remarks.

Mr Curran said the IDA presentation would be on FDI from both a national and a regional perspective.

“There's been a lot of activity over the last 12 to 18 months in the Midlands regional in general and specifically in relation to Offaly as well,” he said.

Work was taking place on both the “installed base”, which is companies already established; and those the IDA is attempting to attract.

At this point council Cathaoirleach John Carroll remarked that “The volume seems to be low” and Mr Whitelaw could be heard saying to his IDA colleague, “I can hear you fine.”

Cllr Carroll then clarified what he was hearing by saying “It's coming and going” and told Mr Curran he was “very low”.

Anne Dillon, the acting director of service who introduced the item to the agenda, and who was located in a separate room upstairs in the council building, said: “We can hear Ken fine”.

Mr Curran suggested he would log out and log in again in an effort to improve matters but it then emerged that the issue was that those in the chamber could not hear anyone speaking from other locations.

“If we have to abandon we have to abandon,” said Cllr Carroll.

It was then agreed that Mr Curran would continue his address for a few minutes.

“If it's not working we're happy to reschedule,” he said.

Resuming his presentation, he said 245,096 people are employed in FDI companies in Ireland and 58% of those are outside Dublin, “an all time high for the agency”.

During the last five years all regions experienced growth, both in terms of the number of companies and employment, and 47% of IDA client companies are outside Dublin.

“As always we are very ambitious for the regions and we always want more for the regions.”

Turning to what he called the “invisible hand” of the IDA which people often did not see, he said the payroll in all companies was €13.3bn in 2018, they purchased €2.6bn worth of Irish materials, spent €5.6bn on Irish services and invested €5.9bn in capital expenditure.

“The reach of this particular spend and impact of it transcends all county boundaries and regional boundaries,” he said.

He gave the example of a company building a data centre in Dublin purchasing raw materials or energy from the Midlands from indigenous companies.

He was interrupted when Cllr Frank Moran said “I can't hear” and Cllr Carroll said the audio link was “starting to break down”.

“I think we may adjourn and reschedule this,” remarked the Cathaoirleach.

He said the matter was too important to continue in such circumstances even though the council had to wait for the meeting to take place.

“A virtual meeting would have to be of a good standard,” he said.

Mr Whitelaw then intervened and asked if he could be heard any clearer than Mr Curran and Cllr Carroll told him that while he was clearer, he was still not able to understand him.

A majority of the members indicated they were in favour of rescheduling the meeting and Cllr Danny Owens suggested that the slides being used by the IDA be circulated beforehand.

Cllr Carroll said: “We're disappointed after waiting for that meeting for so long and Tony had his ammunition ready.”

That was a reference to Cllr Tony McCormack, the Tullamore Fianna Fail representative who has been a trenchant critic of the IDA.

In June Cllr McCormack accused the IDA of being “lazy”, an allegation he had also made about a year earlier.

“I called them lazy and it made headlines that they were very upset over. I still call them lazy. They haven't done an awful lot for us since that.”

He added: “They done an awful lot of talking to us then and told us what they're going to do but they haven't done anything. It's time we got them over in front of us again and make sure they know our feelings on the amount of work they've done in bringing itineraries to Offaly.”

Similar problems with remote audio had occurred earlier in the meeting and on a couple of occasions council officials who had been hoping to present reports from their offices instead decided to move down to the council chamber where they could speak directly to the councillors.

The Midland Tribune and Tullamore Tribune covered the meeting remotely and found that some councillors and officials were audible and others were not.