Forgotten county? Longford received only nine IDA site visits inside three years

There were just nine visits by the IDA to county Longford between 2022 and 2024, according to new figures provided by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

The details were obtained last week following a parliamentary question by Fianna Fáil's Malcolm Byrne in the Dáil.

The Wexford-based TD asked Minister for Enterprise, Peter Burke for a breakdown, by county, of IDA site visits for 2022, 2023 and 2024.

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A breakdown showed there were five IDA visits to Longford in 2022, two in 2023 and a further two in 2024.

County Westmeath, which has a population of 95,840 based on the 2022 Census, just over double the population of county Longford (46,634 people) had 51 or more than five times the number of visits.

In terms of other nearby regions, there was 14 IDA visits to county Roscommon, 12 IDA visits to county Offaly, 10 visits to county Laois and four visits to Meath.

The IDA CEO Michael Lohan, a county Leitrim native, currently lives in county Longford.

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Minister Burke, who replied to Deputy Byrne, insisted IDA site visits are "only one measure of a company’s interest in a particular location and may not necessarily be a true measure of the overall level of foreign direct investment (FDI) activity in a region or county".

He stated for example, 70% of foreign direct investment won by IDA Ireland in 2024 came from its existing client base, rather than new companies.

Minister Burke said potential clients visiting Ireland may visit more than one county and may return to a location more than once and the figures represent individual visits and not the number of companies that have visited.

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"It should also be noted that the final decision on where to locate an investment is always decided by the client, and not by IDA Ireland," he added.

Last September, Longford’s aims of attracting a large multinational employer increased with progress on the acquisition of an IDA backed site which is nearing completion.

Fianna Fáil Senator Joe Flaherty stated there is huge FDI investment and job growth in Longford town.

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"If you look at a half mile area there on the Ballinalee Road between Avery Dennison, Abbott and Technimark we are heading towards 3,000 positions and that would have been unprecedented 20 years ago," he added.

Senator Joe Flaherty said Technimark opened an extension in December 2023 which delivered 120 additional jobs and construction started on a further extension immediately after Christmas. “That work will be completed this November and it will deliver another 150 jobs to Longford town,” he added.

Senator Flaherty said that development is crucial “because had we not been able to deliver planning permission for that extension on time and promptly those 150 jobs were going to be lost to a sister plant in Germany”.