IDA Ireland expects to confirm up to 30 new job projects in the next six months after the State investment agency reported that 2005 was its best year for job creation since 2000. Many companies will invest outside Dublin after 46 of the 71 new projects last year went to the regions, writes Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent
Despite the positive outlook, IDA chief executive Seán Dorgan said he was concerned about the poor quality of parts of the road network and about the constant rise in the price of electricity to industry.
He also criticised the European Commission's refusal last year to sanction a multimillion euro grant package for the expansion of the Intel plant at Leixlip, Co Kildare.
Mr Dorgan made little of reports that the Irish corporate tax regime has been used by big international groups such as Microsoft and Google to drastically reduce their tax liability in the US.
"It is well understood in the US that companies seek to optimise their tax arrangements and they do so in various ways," he said. "Most of the companies who are doing it in Ireland have huge and substantial operations here, in the best cases many thousands of people, and they are here not just for tax."
IDA Ireland believed this would be a good year for job creation, he said. "The pipeline as it stands is as strong as it's been at any time in the last number of years . . .
"I think that we will probably have 25-30 projects in the first six months across the whole span of activity from very significant large ones to perhaps relatively small, but projects of value nevertheless."
Mr Dorgan would not comment on specific plans, although the projects are known to include an investment of up to €1.3 billion by the US bio-pharmaceutical group Amgen in Carrigtohill, Co Cork.
He said it was clear the road network was inadequate for the needs of international business and said the trend in electricity prices was going strongly in the wrong direction. He did not accept that the price rises could be explained only by the spike in the price of oil and said there were problems with the way the market was organised.
On Intel, Mr Dorgan said it was not a good idea for the EU to tie the hands of its member states when they were competing for big projects. "Ireland in that case was the only location in Europe competing for that investment. It competes against a lot of locations outside of Europe," he said.
"Europe's state aid regime, which we understand and can work with, must take account of the global competition for investment rather than just the competition within the 25 member states and that is the fundamental issue in relation to how Europe uses its state aids regime."
Mr Dorgan said 2005 was notable for the spread of investments by multinational companies and for the depth and quality of research and development investments; 12,605 jobs were created last year, bringing the total of full-time jobs in IDA companies to 133,362. This was 4,296 more than in 2004, after job losses were included.