Concerns raised over pharma company’s plans to leave Waterford site

Concerns have been raised over a multinational pharmaceutical company’s plans to leave its Waterford site.

Independent councillor Donal Barry raised the issue at the April plenary meeting of Waterford City and County Council.

Cllr Barry said: “I noted there last week that West Pharmaceutical, who operate a state of the art facility here in Waterford, its most recent major expansion is allocated to its Dublin site.

“Amgen, which is due to close its operation here in Waterford later this year, is also moving to a Dublin site.

“To ensure that Waterford remains a welcome and attractive location for future global investment, has the executive met with the senior management of Amgen and West Pharmaceutical to establish the specific reasons behind their decisions?”

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He went on to outline a number of questions that the council should put to these pharmaceutical companies.

“Specifically, why did Amgen choose to consolidate its Waterford operation to Dublin and why did West Pharmaceutical prioritise its Dublin site for expansion over its Waterford location.

“What have they to offer more that we could not provide here? If there were meetings taking place, what were the outcomes of these meetings?

“I think establishing the reasons why these two major companies chose Dublin over Waterford is vitally important to our local economy here if we want to attract investment.”

In response to Cllr Barry, Chief Executive Sean McKeown outlined a meeting that took place with West Pharmaceutical.

Mr McKeown said: “Myself and Michael Quinn last year spent some time throughout the year meeting all of our major employers and other businesses through the Chambers of Commerce and so forth.

“We did meet the senior management team of West Pharma. I think it was last year, I was just checking my diary there. A very positive meeting in terms of their experience.

“They raised some minor issues that we will hopefully be able to address with them in relation to access and so forth, public transport and connectivity to their site, so we’ll address those.”

He went on to outline a meeting which was held between Director of Services Michael Quinn and Amgen.

“Before, Michael would’ve met with Amgen. A lot of these decisions are taken internationally from headquarters elsewhere.

“I don’t believe it’s anything particular to Waterford. We’ve constant engagement with the IDA.

“In fact, I would’ve met the new regional manager of the IDA yesterday, Mary McEvoy. There’s 85 IDA client companies in the South East region. Over half of them are located in Waterford.

“We’re the fifth largest employment centre in the country and the regional capital of the South East, so we work consistently and constantly with the IDA to ensure that our client companies are happy here.”

Mr McKeown added that some companies experience difficulties finding workers with the correct skillsets, particularly in a full employment economy.

He concluded by saying that the companies have raised no issues with him in relation to the council’s role in their decisions.