IDA Ireland should exceed its job creation target of around 15,000 this year, the State agency's chief executive, Mr Kieran McGowan, has predicted. He said yesterday that targets had already been exceeded for the first quarter of 1998. Mr McGowan said a number of significant projects would be announced in the next few months. He said some companies in the electronics sector were not growing as quickly as had been anticipated. However, companies such as Dell, Compaq and IBM were growing faster than expected.
Mr McGowan said some slowdown in growth had been more or less forecast when jobs targets were drawn up. The key areas for growth he said were still technology and pharmaceuticals, such as medical devices and internationally traded services.
Mr McGowan said competition to win projects was still very intense, especially from places such as Singapore where there was zero tax and a very short planning permission process. Singapore had won a number of pharmaceutical projects including one from Schering Plough.
However, he said being part of the EU gave Ireland a distinct advantage because of EMU and the fact that we have greater availability of skills and people.
Mr McGowan, who was attending the IMI conference in Killarney, told The Irish Times that Ireland relied very much on social partnership and had made a very important contribution to the economy. He said union recognition had not been a problem, although many multinationals preferred not to have them.
Mr McGowan said if there was to be another partnership programme, both unions and employers would have to recognise each other's needs. He said management would have to recognise the role of unions, but unions would also have to recognise that some overseas firms did not want to unionised.
Meanwhile, Mr Frank McCabe, vice-president of Intel and head of its Irish operations, said the slowdown in Intel's profits growth will not affect the US multinational's investment in Ireland. Mr McCabe, who is also general manager of Intel Ireland, said the computer chip manufacturer was proceeding with its $1.5 billion investment in the next stage of its production facilities at Leixlip, Co Kildare. He said investment remained unaffected, but as part of the whole group Intel was being prudent and managing its expenses carefully.
Mr McCabe refused to give specific figures for what current employment, which stands at 3,500, will rise to when the new facility to manufacture the next stage of Pentium II chips opens. It is widely expected the figure will rise to 5,000.
