The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
THE benefits of full US pre-clearance facilities at Shannon Airport should be marketed more to fully realise its potential.
That’s according to Joanne Richardson, chief executive of the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland, who believes the opportunity exists for Shannon Airport to get out into the wider world and market something that is unique to Ireland.
Claiming the pre-clearance facility in Shannon is not marketed enough in America, she pointed out very few countries outside of the US can offer this service. Having used the service herself, she said it offers a huge advantage for regular US travellers.
Since March 2010, the Shannon pre-clearance facility is also available for use by private aircraft; the Dublin facility is only available for commercial flights. This service allows US-bound passengers to undertake all immigration, customs and agriculture inspections at Shannon prior to departure, making their arrival in the US easier and faster.
Speaking to The Clare Champion, Ms Richardson predicts independence from the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) will be positive, giving Shannon the opportunity to market itself fully.
She said access to Shannon for passenger and cargo goods is critical for over 70 US companies in the Mid-West.
“We have a very strong cluster of US investment in the Mid-West. These companies employ in the region of 15,000 direct jobs… the multiplier effect of these jobs would push this to 40,000 or 45,000.
“Forty-five US companies in Galway are dominated by a medical technology centre cluster. All of these companies are supporting Shannon. They all need a vibrant well-run SA, not just transatlantic services but many US companies would have Middle Eastern and worldwide remit links into Europe and major hubs are critical,” she explained.
She revealed of all jobs available in US companies within Ireland, over 50% have to be filled from outside of the country because of a skills shortage in areas like linguistics, science and technology.
“Ireland has very good graduates but it doesn’t have the volume in science, technology and languages.
“The Chamber has global companies in Ireland and have to act like a global economy and bring in people from outside the country for certain jobs.”
The Irish Government recognises this and has a number of initiatives she stated. “The American Chamber sits on an employment engagement forum that has been set up by the Minister of Education and has industry participation in that.
“The national competitiveness council have also recognised the skills shortage.”
Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton last year launched the Industry ICT Action Plan to meet the skills shortages in enterprise. This is a collaborative system-wide response across government, state agencies, education and enterprise sectors aimed at building a pipeline of talented ICT graduates to sustain expansion and development of the sector.
As part of the ICT Action Plan, almost 1,500 places have been provided under two rounds of the ICT Graduate Skills Conversion Programme since 2012. These programmes, designed and delivered in partnership with industry, are targeted at graduate jobseekers who wish to acquire honours degree level programming skills for employment opportunities in ICT.
More than 400 people have already graduated from the programmes and a further 300 are due to graduate before the end of the year. In addition, almost 900 people graduated from ICT upskilling programmes in 2012 under the Springboard initiative and a further 600 are expected to graduate during 2013.
