Ireland retains high International Property Rights index ranking

Ireland has maintained its position for a second year as the 18th best country for protecting property rights in the globe according to the influential International Property Rights Index (IPRI).

The index gave Ireland an overall score of 7.5 for protecting both physical and intellectual property rights in 2014; Finland is in top place with a score of 8.5 and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in last position at 3.2.

Dr Lorenzo Montanari, executive director of the Washington-based Property Rights Alliance which produces the report, warned that Ireland risked slipping back down its rankings if it introduced plain packing rules for tobacco, and rolled these laws out to other products.

He said plain packaging rules could in turn impact Ireland's position on the Forbes index as the number one on its list of "best countries in the world to do business".

The IPRI is one of seven sources, including data from the World Bank and Transparency International, used by the popular business publication to determine its list.

Bad policy

“Ireland is performing one of the best in

Europe

, ” Dr Montanari said. “In Europe it is number 11 and it is number 18 in the world, which gives international investors’ confidence.”

“Trade-marks is one of the items of the intellectual property component of our index,” he added. “Plain packaging [for tobacco] is a bad policy because it does not respect international treaties. It is very dangerous because it could be implemented on any other product according to the ideological view of the current government,” he said.

"We are one of the sources that Forbes use to analyse the best countries for business so for sure this could have an impact," he added.

After Australia introduced plain packaging rules it went from 8th in 2011 on the IPRI league-table to 11th in 2014. "This was not a very big change," Dr Montanari said, but the difference he said between one position on the index and another was often not much.

US congress

Ireland only narrowly beat

New Zealand

for the top

Forbes

ranking last year with

Hong Kong

not far behind it.

The IPRI is supported by 81 think tanks and policy organisations in 62 countries and is funded by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), an influential right-wing group with 10,000 supporters.

Dr Montanari said he could not comment on whether any of these supporters had tobacco interests as his organisation did not disclose its donors.

The IPRI index began in 2007 and it is financed by ATR a hugely influential force in American politics and business, which was founded by Grover Norquist.

In the US Congress, 219 representatives and 41 senators have taken its pledge “never to raise income taxes”.

It is strongly backed by politicians in the Republican party and since it was founded in 1985 many large multinationals have supported ATR including billionaire industrialists the Koch brothers.