Besieged Taoiseach seeks solace in Xanadu

Enda Kenny's visit to the offices of Cork company Xanadu yesterday must have been a welcome relief from the outbreak of rancorous negativity that has been such a feature of Irish public life in recent weeks.

Mark Brosnan, chief executive of the online sports betting software company, is an enthusiastic tech entrepreneur who studied computer science in UCC, where he had a "passion" for econometrics.

Along with fellow early thirtysomethings Cian Nugent and Esme O'Flynn, he set up a business in 2011 that is already employing more than 100 mostly Irish graduates with degrees in computer science, network engineering and business information systems. More of the same are to be sought over the coming 12 months, when the plan is to grow the staff to 220.

The company has managed to fund its expansion without taking on a load of debt as the clients for which it has been working have prefunded the products that Xanadu has developed for them. Those clients, says Brosnan, have become very profitable, in part because of the software Xanadu has built for them.

The online sports betting sector is a very good environment for companies that want to grow. In fact, Brosnan says, the growth of the sector provides an opportunity for Ireland to claim a prominent role in the online gambling space.

Brosnan cites issues such as strong customer data protection and regimes that allow for the early and effective intervention when people are showing problem gambling tendencies, as the type of thing that maturing companies would find attractive.

A strong, stable, sensible licensing regime could see companies flocking here, he says. This is an industry that is in its infancy, is growing rapidly, and that operates on the global stage, he added.