Investing in “Innovation Ireland”
Barry O’Leary, Chief Executive, IDA Ireland
IDA Ireland is the Irish Government Agency
responsible for securing Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI) for Ireland. The Agency is universally
acknowledged as one of the most proactive and
successful organisations in this global sphere. Since
the 1950s, the semi-state agency’s enviable record
at soliciting multinational companies (MNCs) to
use Ireland as their headquarters for European
operations has meant that IDA Ireland’s model has
been used as the benchmark that other economies
have come to emulate. From Malaysia to Abu Dhabi,
from Malta to Oman, IDA’s policies and procedures
have been studied and replicated and have come to
represent the international model of best practice in
the field of attracting inward investment.
IDA has continued to win significant FDI for
Ireland despite the recent challenging global
economic conditions. At the recent launch of IDA
Ireland’s End of Year Statement 2010, IDA CEO
Barry O’Leary said,
“Ireland continued in 2010 to win significant
foreign direct investment. Most encouraging is the
substantial increase in the scale of these investments
from many of the world’s leading companies. In
the past year the job numbers within investments
secured show a marked increase, with the average
employment per investment double the 2009
level. Export led growth is feeding through in
the employment portfolio of IDA’s clients, which
created almost 11,000 new jobs in 2010, significantly
up on the previous year’s total of 4,615.”
Every success however, brings with it, its own
challenges. The international adoption of IDA’s
pioneering methodologies has meant that the
incentives that provided Ireland with an advantage