Paisley welcomes Invest NI’s support of McAuley expansion

The £5 million investment, supported by Invest Northern Ireland, was announced by Invest NI Chief Executive Alastair Hamilton during a visit to the companies’ premises.

Alastair Hamilton said: “McAuley Precision and McAuley Fabrication are established indigenous engineering firms and this announcement is positive news for the Ballymoney area and local manufacturing industry.

“The significant investment in new technology, marketing and people marks a step change in the development of these businesses. Their growth plans are aimed at enhancing McAuley’s position to successfully target high value engineering sectors and in particular the rapidly growing global aerospace sector.

“The 87 new jobs to be recruited over the next four years will generate an additional £2.1m annually in additional salaries and create valuable advanced manufacturing employment opportunities in the Causeway Coast and Glens region.

“McAuley Precision and McAuley Fabrication have worked closely with Invest NI over a number of years and the £620,000 offer of support towards this investment will help the companies to both grow their customer base and help strengthen the Northern Ireland Aerospace supply chain cluster.”

The North Antrim MP Ian Paisley added ‘This is obviously very good news for the local economy, and represents a real vote of confidence in the local engineering sector. The jobs that will be created are skilled manufacturing jobs being created in a highly-respected local company.

“With the recent blows to local manufacturing such as the closure of the JTI Gallaher site, fresh avenues of employment within this field are of huge significance to the area.”

McAuley Precision Limited focuses primarily on precision machining and tubular work for the transportation, oil & gas and aerospace sectors, while McAuley Fabrication Limited focuses on sheet metal fabrication work, including punching, folding and welding for the transportation sector.

Jonathan McAuley, Managing Director of McAuley Precision and McAuley Fabrication said: “This investment signals a major milestone in our growth strategy and will help us to cement our reputation as credible suppliers in our target markets.

“The international aerospace and transportation sectors are particularly important growth areas for us and working with Invest NI we aim to scale up our workforce and manufacturing capabilities to secure work within these valuable supply chains.

“Our investment activities in the coming months will involve upgrading our manufacturing area, investing in our IT systems and new machinery as well as implementing a robust business development and marketing strategy to target new customers.”

Invest NI has offered McAuley Precision £500,000 and McAuley Fabrication £120,000 to support their growth plans. 57 jobs will be created at McAuley Precision while the remaining 30 positions will be recruited by McAuley Fabrication. 23 of the 87 new jobs are already in place.

Mr Paisley added “The £620,000 investment offered by Invest Northern Ireland will see many times that amount put back into the local economy through wages over the coming years. It is notable that even during the economic downturn of recent years we have been able to both attract foreign investment and support the development of our local indigenous businesses. This announcement today is the latest of many good news stories which will help build and sustain our economy for the future.”

Welcoming the investment, Leslie Orr, Manager of ADS Northern Ireland said: “Industry and government have a joint strategy to double the size of the Northern Ireland Aerospace sector to £2billion per year and increase employment by an additional 4000 jobs by 2024.  I would like to warmly congratulate McAuley Precision and McAuley Fabrication on their investment plans which will make a valuable contribution to the growth ambitions of our local aerospace sector.”