Cork County Council has written to the Swedish Company Ikea offering one of three potential sites in North Cork as its first location outside of Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.

One of the mooted sites is the former Fitzgerald Army Barracks in Fermoy, which closed nearly 20 years ago. It was subsequently taken over by the IDA which invested to make it fully serviceable but has not secured tenants.

The other sites proposed by the council are understood to be in Mitchellstown and Charleville according to the Irish Examiner.

"We’ve been criticised in Fermoy in the past for not bringing businesses in. I’m in business myself, the more businesses that come into town the better, it’s up to the other businesses to feed off them and I think if Ikea did come they would bring more footfall to Fermoy," Fine Gael Cllr Noel McCarthy told the newspaper.

Officials from the council have also written to the IDA, highlighting the opportunity for the Swedish company to occupy the Fermoy site.

The company is know to be actively seeking a location for a Cork outlet.

Last year, Ikea's Irish operation generated record sales and profits as 2.6 million visits were made to its Ballymun store - it recently opened a new Collection Point in Carrickmines, in south-Dublin.