There was a full house at the Mallow Primary Healthcare Centre last Friday as Mallow Development Partnership launched the new North Cork Engineering Cluster project. Minister of State Seán Sherlock TD, Michael Loftus,
Faculty Head of Engineering and Science in CIT, Patrick Buckley, Deputy MD of EPS Ltd and meeting chair Noreen Walsh from AIB Mallow all spoke at the event about the advantages of having an engineering cluster located in North Cork.
Representatives from local business, politics and education were all in attendance at the early morning meeting to learn more about the initiative which will see stakeholders from business link up with CIT’s Engineering Faculty, Solas, Cork Education Training Board and local secondary schools to create a competitive and open engineering cluster.
Minister Sherlock outlined the benefits that he has seen on his travels during his time as a junior minister where areas and companies had come together to create engineering clusters. The minister also emphasised the importance of local businesses partnering with likeminded companies which in turn helps to ‘brand an area’ and create greater opportunities for all.
“In North Cork we have engineering companies that have been in existence for 50 to 60 years with a massive capacity and skill-set already in place. They are already supplying to the food sector and to the pharma sector and right across the export sector as well. If we can bring all of those people together and assess what their needs are, and partner those with the education sector like in this case with CIT and the local post primary schools, then I think what we can do is build something in this region of North Cork that can scale up and help the bottom lines of local companies and therefore create new jobs and enhance the skillset we already have in place.”
Mr Sherlock went on to say that he believes that the support is there to help the initiative from existing state organisations. “If we can build the relationships with the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, the local enterprise offices, which are an amalgamation of the local authority capacities, then we can feed into the skills shortage that is there at present and perhaps disrupt the thinking that if you are an intergenerational company supplying one or two products into another company locally that per-haps you could look at suppling into other sectors as well.”
The importance of relation-ship building was a key message throughout the event, with EPS Ltd’s Patrick Buckley outlining his experiences in the commercial world of engineering. Mr Buckley spoke about the importance of scale for local business, comparing the size of the Irish market to those of Britain, Europe and the world, and also spoke about the importance he places on relationship building in business.
Mr Buckley also spoke about the relevance of engineering clusters in modern business and pointed out that Ireland’s most successful business, CRH, is in effect one of the best examples of what can be achieved when companies with a like-minded focus come together.
From the education sector, Michael Loftus spoke to the attendees about his experie-nces in business as well as in education and pointed out what his organisation can bring to the cluster.
Mr Loftus told the business leaders that he believes business linking with education is a key strategy going forward both locally, nationally and interna-tionally, and he is confident that the North Cork Engineering Cluster, linked with CIT’s Engineering faculty, can help address skills needs in the area.
The Engineering Cluster initiative will be holding its first workshop in the coming weeks, with high attendance levels expected.