Executive wants Seagate cash back

Seagate is closing the factory next year

The Northern Ireland government is making "strenuous efforts" to claw back grant aid given to an American firm which is closing a factory in Limavady.

Nine hundred workers at Seagate are to be made redundant when the factory shuts next year.

Economy Minister Nigel Dodds addressed the Enterprise Committee at Stormont.

He said that it was not right to assume that giving state aid to foreign companies "was riskier than supporting locally-owned firms".

"There are numerous examples in Northern Ireland of local companies that have received subsidies and benefits and have gone, Herdmans, Adria, Desmonds," he said.

"Local companies, and they left for the same reasons as the internationals because when it comes to competing on low cost, low wage no modern western economy can compete."

Seagate, which has received £12m from Invest Northern Ireland and its predecessor IDB since 2001, will close in the second half of next year.