This event has taken place, and the following downloads are available:
- James Ives, CEO, Open Hydro
'Manufacturing Marine Turbines' - view/download (zip 9117kb)
- Tim Cooper, Chairman, Coolpower
'Tapping Solar Energy' - view/download (ppt 10786kb)
- Brendan McSherry, Heritage Office Louth County Council
'Joining the Unesco Club' - view/download (ppt 198kb)
- Dr Richard Wilding, Cranfield
'The Key Selling Factors for Dundalk to be a Logistics Hub' - view/download (pdf 1268kb)
- Rod McCarthy, Danwood
'Why we chose Dundalk as our Irish hub' - view/download (pptx 2139kb)
- Jimmy Quinn, Irish Road Hauliers Association
'Building on Success' - view/download (ppt 1279kb)
Conference Report
12th February 2009
"Sustainable Jobs are a reality for this region"
Those 140 odd participants who had the good fortune and commitment to come to the chamber Conference had a real eye-opener of just where this region can re-position itself, of which space is opening up to shape its economic future and create Sustainable jobs that will serve future generations, for change is.
The focus was on the region's location for Sustainable energy; for what it can fashion from its Heritage and thirdly, how it might expect to claim leadership in the whole area of Logistics.
Senator Dan Boyle outlined the Governments belief and commitment to supporting job-creation, essentially to encourage Banks to fill their remit and make funding available for business working capital and for some of the initiatives which would encourage job-retention or creation, initiatives on retro-fitting insulation and up-skilling.
John Campion Sustainable Director with ESB and the conference chair, outlined the 15-year €22 Billion capital commitment programme they had crafted which would support the transition from oil/gas fuelled electricity to Green energy. He highlighted that he'd arrived from Dublin that morning in a 7-seater people carrier, electric powered. His vision for electric transport and the required supporting infrastructure which Dundalk were expected to lead on was a powerful lasting image and opened more that a few eyes of where the future lay.
Brendan Halligan, SEI chair, led off in the first session with a totally compelling observation wherein he clearly saw this region's potential to LEAD the charge for a whole new industry. He recalled his early working days at Inishcore when the GNR works in Dundalk were the bench-mark engineering works in the country. He saw potential for us to capture the manufacture of 40-storey high wind turbines and deliver them directly from a re-generated Greenore Port to be just one option he saw from that legacy. The off-shore maintenance and supply business was waiting to be captured and he accepted that we'd registered our determination to LEAD in Sustainable development with the embryonic Centre of Excellence which saw international names like Dimplex and Coolpower collaborating to powerful effect.
Brenda signed off with a "watch-this-space" note, for; he made clear that the completion of SEI's relocation to Dundalk is imminent!!
Openhydro's Peter Corcoran had the delegate's eyes out on stalks, when he showed just what this embryonic Greenore-based outfit were up to. The DVD showing the scale of marine turbines at work, the export relationships which they were evolving, this created a real buzz of the reality awaiting exploitation. Tim Cooper Chair of CoolPower, who has led the exploitation of PhotoVoltaic (that's electrical power from Solar) and Solar itself in Ireland, delivered a very convincing tale of what can be "trapped" from the sun, even in Ireland. His frustration to uncover enough power to light Donegal, that in the first week in grey January, from PV, was palpable and having patented the key SMART grid meter EMMA many years ago, is only now beginning to be heard! His pension money is riding on our Government understanding that micro-generation at homes and businesses can hugely reduce our dependence on fossil fuel energy, but I'd be thinking he won't starve!
The second session opened with Brenda McSherry Louth's Heritage officer "uncovering", for most in the room, just what Natural treasures we had on our doorstep. James Orr who runs a Wetlands business on Strangford, showed just how valuable to the local economy his enterprise was – he wasn't just protecting bird life and species, but making sure that the 80,000 visitors to Castle Espie sampled local foods and understood how even industrial projects could incorporate wetlands from roof run-off and make their environments more acceptable. Lemon the geologist attached to Marble Arch caves, put to bed some of the mis-leading concerns that have emerged for the Cooley, Carlingford, Sleive Gullion and the Mournes combining to become Ireland's 3rd GeoPark. The big messages were the value to stimulate jobs and that GeoParks were non-statutory, they did not eg have Planning functions. The Boyne Valley and Newgrange might also conceivable be incorporated.
Session 3 turned attention to Logistics and Richard Wilding Cranfield's Professor, cleverly showed how Dundalk might deploy Collaboration and Trust to fashion the framework of Relationships that underpins all business, but particularly Logistics. Rod McCarthy Ops Director of Danwood gave Dundalk a very powerful reference which was music to the ears, when he outlined how our location, infrastructure and PEOPLE were the difference that brought them here. Rose McCarthy of Sercom, a star performer in the logistics sector gave a very full expose of how a Logistics company works, it seemed Sercom would do just about anything that was non-core for just about any business, with offices in the US and China. Jimmy Quinn from FHA reminded us that the region was a base of 3 decades standing which housed distribution businesses, because, we were right on location with the infrastructure to deliver and service most of Ireland, there and back within the 9-hour driving day, and, could access most of the UK quicker than a Glasgow based source!
|
|
