Navan was never in race for PayPal jobs: county manager

Navan was never in the race for the 1,000 PayPal jobs recently announced for Dundalk, according to Meath County Manager, Tom Dowling. The county manager was responding during a debate at Monday's meeting of Meath County Council calling for an urgent meeting with the Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton to discuss the IDA's strategy for attracting overseas companies to locate in Meath. Proposing a meeting, Fianna Fail's Cllr Shane Cassells said he had been disappointed that Navan and Meath had lost out to Dundalk on PayPal because of the boost such an investment could have brought, especially to other businesses in the area. County Manager Tom Dowling told the meeting that any suggestion of inaction by either the council or the statutory agencies in trying to secure inward investment for the county was untrue. He said that Navan did not lose PayPal as it had not been in the race for these jobs. He said the company's decision to locate in Dundalk had been taken by the company alone and pointed out that the building in Dundalk was 144,000sq ft, which could accommodate 1,000 people, while the vacant Quinn building in Navan is only 80,000sq ft. Director of services Kevin Stewart said the IDA's strategy was to "put on the green jersey" - to go abroad and win jobs for Ireland not for any specific county. Its only regional remit was to channel 50 per cent of jobs outside of Dublin and Cork. Following the debate, councillors voted to seek a meeting with Minister Richard Bruton and the IDA to discuss the authority's strategy for Meath, review its performance over the past five years and seek a more proactive role from the agency in the future.