If it’s Google it can’t be wrong

Close as

It never surprises me how close we are to the rest of the world right here in Meath. Our proximity to the airport means that anyone worried about being too far away from ‘home’ shouldn’t have a worry – if you want to live and work in Meath but have access to your family in the UK or the US, we are literally only hours away.

If pigs could fly

This thought crossed my mind again as I looked up Google Maps to see how far away from us the European Medicines Agency (EMA) HQ in London is – and according to Google, we’re a mere hour and ten minutes away by plane. I’ll be honest and admit that there’s probably a little bit of mapping license in that amount of time…but still, for anyone who has commuted into London from its suburbs, an hour plus is quite acceptable. Anyway, if @Google says it seventy minutes from Meath the London’s East End, who am I to question the mighty Google??

A VIP invitation

The Minister for Health @SimonHarrisTD is currently lobbying to have the EMA come to Ireland in a post-Brexit world. On behalf of Meath County Council I’m personally inviting all 900 people who work in the EMA’s Canary Wharf HQ to come and visit Meath to see how their working lives could be enhanced if they were to choose Ireland, Meath specifically, for their new home. What they’ll find, that can’t be had in their current central London working space is fresh air, lots and lots of beautiful fresh air, green fields and a plenty of room to build the EMA HQ of their dreams. @EMA_News please copy! Better still the @MeathCoCo Enterprise Team is here to make sure that any such project would go through without a hitch.

Everything’s on the menu

Our #MakeItMeath campaign has opened my eyes to the requirements of so many industries. Never having previously heard of the EMA I see that they have literally hundreds and hundreds of visitors to their HQ every week for international meetings, travelling from right across Europe. With Ryanair covering all of Europe and with Dublin Airport as one of its main hubs, Meath could and would meet all of its travelling requirements. The organisation needs a very large number of highly skilled workers. As Meath is surrounded by three top class Third Level colleges we can have courses designed to meet the specific educational requirements of such a body.

What a steal

One final thought. Ireland is also incredible value for money. For the sake of being fair (we’re always very fair in Meath) I chose a date at random to compare travel costs between London and Meath, and London and Manchester. The @Ryanair flight (at the time of writing) would cost €48 return. The standard return train fare was a whopping €170. Now multiply that by a couple of hundred employees and that amounts to more than a hill of beans. So come on European Medicines Agency, #MakeItMeath

Jackie Maguire, Chief Executive, Meath County Council