The Mitchelstown Enterprise Centre, to be located in the former EMF building on Dublin Hill, is now set to be taken over by Mitchelstown Forum by September, after a funding boost of €279,750 from the Cork County Council Economic Development Fund was announced this week. 

Chairman of Mitchelstown Forum, Liam O’Doherty, told The Avondhu that he welcomes the initiative from Cork County Council to provide this fund, as not every council does it and they have been putting away 1% of commercial rates every year since 2010 and the enterprise centre in the only North Cork project to benefit from it, to his knowledge.

“They don’t give this money out lightly, lots of ‘t’s have been crossed and ‘i’s have been dotted – we are two years bidding for this and now we have all of our ducks in a row and we are ready to sign the contract and purchase the former EMF building,” he said.

The Chairman said that they want to enter the building without huge borrowings and he said that while the community fundraising is going very well and they have met their commitment to the council, they would welcome any further contributions.

While the building is office ready, Enterprise Ireland will be kitting it out, as they will need to install high speed broadband, do the marketing and get in tenants.

“It’s really well located, just two hours from Dublin Airport, less than an hour from Cork in the heart of Munster on a massive road network. Once we get in one anchor tenant, we can build around that. It’s a fine building and it would have been a shame to let it go. A lot of towns are trying to do this from scratch, but we are on our way,” Liam O’Doherty said.

He added that they are not looking for any particular types of businesses and all queries are welcome.

Liam acknowledged Tom Whelton, the Chairman of the Enterprise Sub Committee, who would have driven this project on and Cork County Council for awarding them the money.

“As Chairman of the Forum, I would like to thank all who were involved, and the local political representatives and Oireachtas members and the county council along with Enterprise Ireland,” Liam told The Avondhu.

Cllr Kevin O’Keeffe said that this funding is very welcome, as it lets the project get off the ground.

“This project has been in the pipeline with some time. I’m delighted that it’s almost at a conclusion. The forum can now actively seek potential start up companies to occupy the enterprise centre,” he said.

Cllr O’Keeffe added that interest has already been shown by individual parties who wish to become tenants in the centre.

Minister Sean Sherlock told The Avondhu that at the beginning there were issues that had to be overcome and through his role as Minister, he facilitated engagement between Enterprise Ireland and the other agencies, like Cork County Council and Ballyhoura Development.

“This was one of my main priorities when I became Minister, as it was an issue that little progress had been made on during the lifetime of the last government.

“There have been delays but we needed to have time to get over some challenges, but I’m confident that through that collaboration in Mitchelstown, those are now sorted,” Minister Sherlock said.

He said that the centre will create jobs in Mitchelstown, Fermoy and Mallow and could offer the opportunity to look at the food sector and food related jobs could be created in North Cork.

Minister Sherlock has also been in talks with the Rubicon centre about bringing start up companies from the Rubicon back out in the regions of Cork.