Enterprise Board CEO up for challenge of attracting jobs

Enterprise Board CEO up for challenge of attracting jobs


Anton McNulty
antonmcnulty@mayonews.ie

The new CEO of the Mayo County Enterprise Board has admitted the competition in attracting jobs and investment to the county is ‘cut throat’ but stresses they will not stand back in the process.
Swinford native Joanne Grehan, who is also the Head of the Council’s Enterprise and Investment Unit told yesterday’s monthly meeting of Mayo County Council that they will use all the advantages the county has in attracting investment and jobs.
The Enterprise and Investment Unit is a new creation of Mayo County Council which was set up by the County Manager, Peter Hynes as a vehicle for creating sustainable jobs for the county. He said this was a ‘transitional step’ before the introduction of Local Enterprise Offices as part of local authority reform which are due to be introduced in late 2013.
Ms Grehan told the meeting that they will target different sectors such as the Diaspora, Tourism, Renewable Energy and Micro Enterprise to look to create and attract new jobs for Mayo. She said creating jobs was a challenge but was excited about the challenges they are facing.
“We do have challenges and one of the challenges is that the IDA do not see Mayo as one of their target locations. But it is not like the Mayo Mafia to stand back and accept it. We are ready to go to the IDA and will continue to knock on their door. We appreciate it is a very competitive environment but we have to try to be cohesive and sell the Mayo story and bring investment in. It is an exciting time but also a challenging time and we are excited to be involved,” she said.
Ms Grehan added that collaboration between councillors, communities and the Diaspora was key to investment and the global message they had to send out was ‘why not invest in Mayo’.
The presentation by Ms Grehan was well received by the councillors who were generally supportive of the Unit’s objectives.
Fine Gael councillor Jarlath Munnelly said jobs can solve a lot of problems in the county and said this unit allowed the Council to hold their ‘destiny in our own hands’.
Cllr Michael Burke congratulated the county manager and Ms Grehan for their work but asked them not to forget the small and medium enterprises. He noted that 250,000 jobs were lost in Ireland from 2008 to 2010 and it will take a lot of work to get people back to work.
Cllr MicheΡl McNamara said there were a lot of challenges facing the county and these included incentivising young people to stay in the country instead of moving abroad.
Mr Hynes said that competition for jobs was ‘cut throat’ and they had to remain competitive and send the message out that Mayo is open for business.

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