Not that Secretary of State, Peter Hain, would be keen to distract our attention.. nor Invest NI for that matter.. ANYway, yesterday Hain officially opened the newly built (using PPP funding) Invest NI headquarters and today he appeared in Derry to announce 300 new jobs for Seagate – part of an investment of £83million.. of which £24.82million is supplied through Invest NI.. For good measure Hain also threw in the announcement of an upgrade to the A6 Derry to Dungiven road, and, seemingly, plucked a figure of £250million for that one from somewhere.. no clear indication of how that will be funded, yet.. but, as previously noted, the Investment Strategy for NI, that it will be a part of, will be heavily reliant on Public Private Partnerships.From the Notes to Editors in the NIO statement on the Seagate jobs announcement –
Invest NI has offered £16.394m towards total eligible project costs of £62.349m of the Springtown project and £8.421m towards total eligible project costs of £20.826m of the Limavady project as part of its North West Action plan which has been designed specifically to help develop the economic strength of the region.
It’s also worth noting that while the announcement of the upgrade to the A6 was made as the Ilex board launched the Regeneration Plan for Derry.. it’s a Regeneration Plan that officially remains out for consultation until 3 February 2006.
Meanwhile, in Dublin, Irish Minister Michael Martin announced 600 new jobs with Google, supported by IDA Ireland, who don’t actually mention any associated costs.