A lack of responsible investment

It’s all too easy to call on the British Government and Invest NI to intervene and to “provide investment to sustain the plant and support the employees until a new owner can be found”, as the MP for West Belfast, SF’s Gerry Adams, has done in the case of US company Trivirix, after the court-appointed administrator – Deloitte and Touche as the BBC reported previously – announced that 76 jobs would be lost following a review of the company’s books, enabling 37 people to remain employed there. The SDLP MLA Alex Atwood also called for the same response. But, as the BBC report, the US company has already received £2.5million in grants since 1999, and Invest NI, let’s remind ourselves, has a less than admirable record of managing investment.But it is one example of real politics breaking out, and providing evidence of a difference in emphasis between some of the parties, and, in this case, there’s at least one sensible comment – from the DUP’s Diane Dodds, as quoted in the BBC report –

“It is absolutely disgraceful that a large American firm that still has three fully functioning factories in the US can come to Northern Ireland, take grant aid for the establishment of their NI base and then leave a few years later owing their employees wages and salaries”

Pete Baker