Gardiner says Enterprise Minister Dodds is a Belfast minister supporting Belfast investment
Sam Gardiner MLA, has said he remains deeply dissatisfied with Enterprise Minister Nigel Dodds’s explanation as to why Craigavon, Banbridge and Lisburn had received only 29 investor visits in the past 5 years compared to 368 for Belfast.
“When I asked the Minister to explain why, in the last five years, the areas of Craigavon, Banbridge and Lisburn combined had had only 29 visits organised by Invest NI for inward investors, compared to 368 for Belfast, he told me that the content of a visit programme, the locations that have been chosen to visit, and the investment decision, rested solely with the prospective investor.”
“That amounts to nothing more than ducking the question because it suggests that his Department and INI have no input into helping and advising inward investors where to invest. No-one is going to believe that and I certainly don’t. I cannot accept that an overseas investor would know enough about Northern Ireland to have a precise idea about where they would want to locate. They must have been briefed on the Province by someone and that someone has got to be INI. If it was not then INI are not doing their job.”
“To suggest, as the Minister does, that investors are placing an increasing emphasis on locations that have close proximity to universities is to rule out the whole of Northern Ireland outside Belfast.”
“The Minister said that investors are looking for large labour pools and excellent infrastructure. It also suggests that all people who train in University live in Belfast. They do not. Only 280,000 live in Belfast compared to 1.4 million who do not. In any case the infrastructural links of Craigavon, Banbridge and Lisburn are arguably better than those of Belfast with its traffic chaos.”
“The truth is that Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister Nigel Dodds represents a Belfast constituency and is supporting Belfast.”