Madam, – Contrary to the impression given by Jim Stewart (Opinion, September 6th) the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) businesses are well situated and eager to play an important role in the future economic growth of Ireland; and are actively doing so in conjunction with the IDA, Government and other relevant stakeholders.
The IFSC has shown great resilience through the global financial crisis.
Furthermore, our research earlier this year across senior sector executives provided significant grounds for optimism, with some 40 per cent of respondents stating they expected business activity to increase this year, while some 30 per cent expected to increase employee numbers. The members of the Federation of International Banks in Ireland are doing everything in their power to grow their business footprint in Ireland and we are strongly supported to this end by the IDA and by Government – as evidenced by their full support for the sector’s appointment of John Bruton as chairman of the newly-formed financial services body, IFSC Ireland.
Mr Bruton’s role is to actively promote Ireland as a location of choice for international financial services and over the coming months he will be visiting locations in the Far East and the Gulf Region.
We also have a number of new initiatives within the IFSC that are likely to further enhance our attractiveness as a financial centre. These include the development of Ireland as a hub for green financing and carbon trading, growing our capabilities in Islamic financing and Sharia-compliant products and fostering the use of Ireland as a location for registering finance-based intellectual property rights. Ireland is not alone in vying for the new opportunities that are being presented.
The IFSC has a great many competitive advantages such as our governmental agency support, our location, our language, our educated workforce, our corporate tax structure and, perhaps most importantly, our entrepreneurial spirit. We will continue to work collectively to harness maximum benefit for the national economy from these advantages. – Yours, etc,