asked the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy if machinery, which has been the subject of a grant from the IDA can be held in situ rather than be removed for installation and used elsewhere, where the company being closed is a unit of a group which carries on the same manufacture in other places in the State.

I am informed by the Industrial Development Authority that it is a condition of all grant agreements that machinery and equipment for which a grant has been paid should not be removed from the site of the grant-aided undertaking, without the prior consent of the IDA.

If in the event of a closure, however, a company has repaid IDA grants in full, it is free to dispose of the assets which had been grant-aided in whatever manner it wishes.