Bouncing around the film set of new US television sci-fi series Nightflyers in Limerick's Troy Studios, Leo Varadkar was in his element.
“It was a pretty cool,” he said. “I was really impressed.”
The self-confessed Trekkie Taoiseach says he’s “been been in film studios before” but “this is the most impressive”.
Praise indeed, and helpful too, given that a group of NBC Universal executives were present as the Taoiseach was taken on a much-anticipated trip behind the scenes.
"I've been to Lucasfilm in San Francisco, and I've been in Universal Studios, which I suppose is more of a theme park than a set. This was really impressive, probably because it was a sci-fi," he said. "They've actually built a mock space ship. It's very real."
Speaking afterwards, Mr Varadkar said: "I don't know if you're a Star Trek fan, but it's like walking around the Enterprise, or walking around Deep Space Nine. There's a bridge, a memory room, corridors and lifts, and you actually do feel like you're walking around a real Enterprise."
Spaceship door
Varadkar’s troupe were also enjoying themselves as they followed the leader on deck.
One of his team squeezed his lips together and makes the trademark “whissshhhh” sound of a spaceship door opening and closing as the Taoiseach walked on to the bridge.
Troy has re-energised the old Dell manufacturing factory it now calls home, where 3,000 workers once built computer parts before the economic crash came.
‘Old Dell site’
“I think it’s a really good news story, in many ways. It’s the old Dell site. And what we have here now is 300 people who are working in a creative industry. A lot of them are from Limerick but a lot of them are from other parts of the country and other parts of the world who have come here to work.”
The Taoiseach siad he planed to attract more production crews to Troy and other areas outside of Dublin by “tweaking” tax incentives for the industry.
“We’re going to examine it between now and the budget, and if we can do it, we will,” he said.
