IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS and reducing costs, physical infrastructure, enhancing workers skills and providing access to credit have been identified by Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Batt O’Keeffe as the key areas to support economic recovery.
“I intend to take both short-term and longer term-action on each of these to address them in a way that is meaningful to business,” said Mr O’Keeffe. “Business can expect action and will see delivery.”
Mr O’Keeffe, who was appointed to the brief in last month’s Cabinet reshuffle, said that “my department will be run like a business”.
The Minister said that he was in the process of setting clear strategic targets to be achieved over the next two years by his department and the agencies which fall under its remit, including IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.
Mr O’Keeffe was speaking at a briefing on attracting foreign direct investment to Ireland, which was held in Dublin yesterday and organised by consultants KPMG.
KPMG tax partner Anna Scally, one of the members of the Taoiseach’s Innovation Taskforce, which published its report last month, called on the Government to start implementing its recommendations.
“As a matter of priority, you must start implementing the recommendations of that report, before you start losing some of the goodwill that exists to make Ireland a global innovation hub,” said Ms Scally.
Aidan Brady, country officer with financial services group Citi, said that his firm had prospered since establishing a European operations and services centre in the IFSC in 1995. Citi now employs more than 2,000 staff in Ireland.
Mr Brady added that the Government had supported Citi with €15 million in grants in 1995 but last year alone, it paid €140 million in corporation and payroll taxes.
“If a bank did such a good deal there would be an Oireachtas inquiry into it,” he joked.
Mr Brady said that Ireland had successfully moved “up the value chain” by changing from being a cost centre to a profit centre.
As a result, although 700 jobs had moved to lower-cost locations like India in recent years, Citi had created 850 new roles in Dublin over the same period.
