February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — The U.S. medical company Boston Scientific, which has begun a recruitment drive to fill 800 new jobs at manufacturing plants in Cork and Galway, is hoping that the career opportunities will attract Irish expatriates home.
"This is part of a continuing set of initiatives as we grow and we are constantly in the market for talent," Michael Greally, human resources manager at the Galway plant, said.
"We have people working here from many different places around the world. We have Irish people who have come home from all over the globe and we need more."
The new recruitment drive is part of a five-year plan that will bring the Irish workforce to more than 2,000.
The Massachusetts-based company said it was moving production of a number of products to Ireland and would be creating an extra 525 jobs in Cork and 275 in Galway.
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Boston Scientific announced in 1997 that it was spending £40 million in the Irish plants and it began manufacturing in 1998.
Tom McCabe, managing director Europe, said his company’s global-operations plan would generate more than 500 jobs in Cork in 18 months. Two hundred people are already employed there.
The new jobs will cover a broad spectrum from product builders to engineers to managers.
"Currently we manufacture products which are unique in interventional neuroradiology treatments," McCabe said.
"The addition of more technologies, including manufacturing products for vascular and cardiology treatments, enhances our capabilities and opportunities."
The plant expansions follow a decision to shift production of a number of products to Ireland.
"It will consolidate manufacturing operations along product lines, shifting significant amounts of production to the facilities in Cork and Galway," McCabe said.
The company has built up a strong presence in Europe and has offices in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
The company began in the late 1960s when co-founder John Abele acquired an interest in the Medi-tech development company. It began producing steerable catheters in 1969.
In 1979, Abele and Pete Nicholas set up Boston Scientific, headquartered in Natick, Mass. It is now the largest medical-device company in the world dedicated to minimally invasive therapy and employs about 13,500.
More than 10,000 products help unblock obstructed or narrowed vessels. It also supplies equipment for draining wounds or fluid deposits, biopsy needles, injection catheters and specialist cardiac treatment devices.