Kenny urges US firms to invest in Ireland's recovery

TAOISEACH IN NEW YORK:ENDA KENNY had just travelled from Wall Street, where he rang the bell to open the New York Stock Exchange.

“As of now, Dow Jones is up 28 points,” he announced, provoking hearty laughter among several hundred business leaders at lunch in a Washington hotel.

Ambassador Michael Collins introduced Mr Kenny as “a man with a very big mandate and a very big mission and a very big message to deliver to you”.

“My message is the same everywhere,” Mr Kenny replied. “Invest in Ireland’s recovery.” He repeatedly quoted Bill Clinton at last month’s investment forum in New York. “You’d be nuts not to invest in Ireland,” Mr Clinton had said.

Ireland’s “effective” corporate tax rate is actually only 11.9 per cent, for a “headline” rate of 12.5 per cent, Mr Kenny said, offering the de rigueur assurance that it will not change.

Two dates figured in Mr Kenny’s speech: 2013, when the Irish Government will encourage the 70 million-strong Irish diaspora to “come home” for “the Gathering”; and 2016, by which time “Ireland will be the best small country in the world in which to do business . . . the best country to raise a family, to grow old with dignity and respect”.

In the afternoon Mr Kenny spoke to an energy sector and utilities seminar hosted by Enterprise Ireland to introduce 10 Irish businesses working in renewable energy to US utilities companies. He also addressed a joint meeting of Science Foundation Ireland and the Wild Geese Network of Irish Scientists. The Dublin and Washington-based groups announced a new partnership. Officials from the enterprise body and the science foundation said Mr Kenny’s presence raised their groups’ profiles and gave them greater credibility with US interlocutors. “You rarely get a Government as open as this one,” Mr Kenny told the business leaders.

He and his Ministers would be happy to meet with any investors who come to Dublin, he added.

When he took office, trust in Europe was at a nadir, Mr Kenny said. A year later, talk is no longer of defaults or the end of the euro zone, but of a growth and jobs agenda. He did not mention the referendum on the fiscal compact.

Ireland’s openness to international business would pull the country out of the debt crisis.

“We’re seeing businesses bet on Ireland every day,” the Taoiseach said. He mentioned a long list of US companies who’ve invested in Ireland in the past year, including PayPal, Pepsi, Abbott, Dell, Eli Lily, Mastercard and Twitter.

Mr Kenny said Ireland’s “unique” relationship with 40 million Irish-Americans and 70 million in the Irish diaspora worldwide “is more than a strategic asset; it’s part of who we are. Our task is to ensure this global family stays linked”.

The US “will be essential to our economic recovery. It is the engine of the world economy,” he said. “America’s success is good for Ireland, and Ireland’s success is good for America.”

When Ireland assumes the six-month presidency of the EU next January one of its first tasks will be “the removal of remaining restrictions” on trade between the US and Europe.

Before heading to the American Ireland Fund’s gala dinner, the Taoiseach stopped at the Irish-owned Dupont Circle Hotel for a photo opportunity marking the resumption of direct flights between Washington and Dublin, which stopped in the autumn of 2009.