jQuery Plugin into Ember component

I am trying to turn this jQuery plugin http://ift.tt/VItLX2 into an Ember component.

import Ember from 'ember';

export default Ember.Component.extend({

tagName : "input",
type : "text",
attributeBindings : [ "name", "type", "value", "id"],

_initialize: function() {

    Ember.assert("Tags Input has to exist on Ember.$.fn.tagsInput", typeof Ember.$.fn.tagsInput === "function");

    this.$('#tags').tagsInput({'width':'100px'});

}.on('didInsertElement')
});

Then in my handlebar file {{tag-input id="tags"}}

But it seems that the jQuery isn't working as it is just a standard input box. This is the generated HTML <input id="tags" class="ember-view" type="text"></input>

But if I copy this.$('#tags').tagsInput({'width':'100px'}); into the console and run it the element uses the plugin.

What would be the reason that the plugin wouldn't get fired on didInsertElement?