RANDOX Laboratories, which is based in Northern Ireland, plans to create 135 new jobs in Co Donegal after becoming frustrated at the level of bureaucracy attached to investing in the North.
The move comes as part of a €7.5 million investment project to develop a manufacturing, research and development facility.
It is the first capital investment project in the Republic by the Antrim-based clinical diagnostics company, which employs more than 600 people in Northern Ireland.
Chris Henry, Randox Laboratories' marketing manager, said that the company decided to invest in the Republic because it had been frustrated over the level of support it received from economic development agencies in the North.
"Our investment plans were being hampered by a high level of bureaucracy in Northern Ireland. Invest Northern Ireland were not as flexible as we had hoped they would be. We were approached by investment bodies from southern Ireland and we looked at investment opportunities which existed in Donegal."
Mr Henry said that the company's decision had not been influenced by the Republic's more attractive corporation tax rate of 12.5 per cent, which compares to the North's 28 per cent.
"Since its inception, Randox Laboratories has reinvested a large percentage of its profits in research and development each year, so the corporation tax rate is not a big issue for us," he said.
Randox is a private company which was established in 1982 by Dr Peter Fitzgerald.
Dr Fitzgerald, a former research fellow at Queen's University, initially built and developed a small laboratory at the back of his parents' house in Co Antrim.
Dr Fitzgerald, currently Randox Laboratories' managing director, has expanded the small laboratory, which had been based in a former hen-house and stable, into an international company with an estimated annual turnover of more than £40 million.
Mr Henry said that the new facility in Donegal would complement Randox Laboratories' existing operations in the North.
But the decision by one of the North's most successful local companies to invest in the Republic because its investment strategy was being "hampered" in Northern Ireland will come as a major embarrassment to the North's economy minister, Nigel Dodds. Mr Dodds has spent the last week promoting the North as an investment location to more than 100 senior American executives during the US:NI Investment Conference.
Although it lost out on the Randox investment, Northern Ireland has won a major jobs and investment boost from the Japanese IT company Fujitsu. It plans to create 150 new jobs as part of an £8.8 million investment to develop a new centre of excellence in the North. The group already employs approximately 750 people in Northern Ireland.
