Incentive could create 5,000 new jobs at Mayo base

KENNY DELIVERS KNOCK AIRPORT TAX-FREE DESIGNATION

By TOM GILLESPIE

The Government was last night approved of plans to establish a tax-free industrial zone around Knock International Airport in a move which will create thousands of jobs in an area formerly labelled 'the black triangle'.

The deal was hammered out after months of top level negotiations involving Tourism and Trade Minister Enda Kenny and representatives of Ross Perot Junior's empire Alliance International.

The concession will mean that industrialists will have lucrative incentives to set up in a duty-free region with the airport as its hub. It has been estimated that up to 5,000 jobs could be created initially by the unique development.

Over the past two years Minister Kenny has held protracted talks with the American backers and Mr. Perot, son of former US Presidential candidate Ross Perot, who paid at least one hush-hush visit to Knock Airport. Minister Kenny has visited the Alliance International headquarters in the US, a company which employs thousands of workers worldwide.

The Kenny coup will be seen as a major embarrassment to Fianna Fail as the party, when in power, did not proceed with the designation of Knock Airport. Knock is the only regional airport mentioned in the Finance Bill while the other airports dotted around the country will be included at a later date.

"This is the most significant developmental move since the creation of Knock Airport", minister Kenny told the Telegraph last night. "It will be massive for the entire West", he stated.

GLOBAL-SKYROADS

Alliance International plan to construct global-skyroads where they intend to establish two bulkheads in Europe, one in Amsterdam the other at Knock where they will build units from 50,000 square feet upwards. They will provide the magnet to attract international companies eager to avail of the tax-free incentives.

"The scale of this is enormous. Alliance in their own time have to make their own decisions but what happened in Dallas was that they invested over $5 billion in five years and created 20,000 jobs.

"On a scaled bases you are talking about very significant numbers of jobs indeed", Minister Kenny said.