Taoiseach opens Covidien, European Services Centre, Cherrywood, Dublin

Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD along with Minister for Entreprise Trade & Innovation, Mr. Batt O'Keeffe, today welcomed the opening of the Covidien, European Services Centre, in Cherrywood, Dublin.

He congratulated President and CEO of Covidien, Richard J. Meelia and the team on the opening of the Centre and the creation 200 jobs since 2009.

€11 million has been invested in the state of the art Cherrywood contact centre which houses customer services, credit control, contracts & pricing and import & export functions for 16 European countries. Covidien employs more than 8,000 employees in Europe and almost 2,000 in Ireland.

The Cherrywood site is also the base for Covidien's sales and marketing teams in Ireland, and the facility will provide the platform for Covidien to deliver its customer services across Europe, and to parts of the Middle East.

The announcement of new investment in collaborative Research & Development is fully in keeping with the Government's policy to build a Smart Economy and to position Ireland as a Global Innovation Hub.

The Taoiseach went on to say "Covidien's Centre is an impressive operation and its establishment here is a vote of confidence in Ireland as a key location to carry out international services and having a company of this calibre establish its European Services Centre in Ireland, is very significant and very welcome".

Ends
20th July 2010