NEARLY 300 successful, foreign-based Irish businesspeople have agreed to join a new Government-sponsored body, copying models already used by Israel and India, in a bid to deliver extra business and investment for Ireland from its 40 million-strong diaspora.
The Global Irish Network, one of the fruits of last September’s talks in Farmleigh between Government Ministers and leading Irish businesspeople, was formally launched in London yesterday by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin.
The new body will develop relations between the Government “and the most influential members of the global Irish business community” and integrate them into “one global group”, said Mr Martin, who described it as “a network of CEOs”.
He hoped the network’s members – nearly 300 have so far signed, based in 37 countries – would offer advance warning about major industrial and economic changes, and ensure that the Government is fully informed of the ideas of key Irish-connected contacts abroad.
The meeting of the British-based members was attended by former British Petroleum chairman Peter Sutherland, deputy chairman of Reuters Thomson Niall Fitzgerald and Shane O’Neill of Liberty Global, among others.
Ireland, said Mr Fitzgerald, “has very unusual, if not unique, assets in terms of the talent available outside Ireland”, though he said it was “a pity” it took an economic crisis to bring about action.
The Global Irish Network, he said, would offer “constructive, but robust” opinions and be “fiercely independent” because “none of the people here are beholden to anyone”, and desire only to “help the country that has given us what we have”.
Mr Sutherland said all Irish people, whether at home or abroad, “need to pull together” during the economic crisis: “This is an opportunity to express often very critical views.” In the past, he said, there was not enough contact between the public and the private sector because “of a fear of contamination”, but this needed to change if Ireland is to be able to meet future challenges.
But he insisted the influence of the network should not be over-estimated: “This is not some Masonic Lodge. The interest of the country is the only thing that should be driving it. The Government governs.”
Earlier, Mr Martin met London-based members of the Irish International Business Network – an alliance of often younger Irish business people based in London, New York and Dublin.
Irish companies at home must become more ambitious and improve their international sales and marketing, he said. “People don’t have a strong sense of what will take us on a sustained basis to develop markets.”