IDA Ireland can help your business expansion needs

Exploring Ireland’s FDI attraction

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Making waves in tech on Ireland's west coast

Forging connections in Dublin again

Going viral in Dublin

GHG emissions will reduce by seven per cent annually up to 2031.

Sustainability

Ireland’s government has committed to reducing emissions

Decarbonisation is vital in order to combat climate change, and Ireland has an advantage in abundant renewable energy sources. It generates a greater proportion of its electricity from onshore wind than any other country in the world, but must now turn its attention offshore. “Ireland has one of the best offshore wind resources in the world, and with the right level of ambition, we could ultimately be a global leader in renewables, exporting green energy internationally,” says Stephen Wheeler, Ireland Country Lead at energy company SSE, which, as the largest wind farm operator in the country, is accelerating plans for offshore farms.“There is enormous potential in renewables, but there’s work to be done,” says Tomás Sercovich, CEO of Business in the Community (BITC), an organisation that advises on sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He echoes concerns from industry bodies such as the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) that both the planning and grid systems will need revamping if Ireland is to achieve its “70/30” target: generating 70 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

Ireland’s carbon tax rate of €26 per tonne is expected to rise to €80 per tonne by 2030.

€80

36.3 per cent – up from 32.5 per cent in 2019.

Wind energy share of electricity demand in 2020:

Stephen Prendiville, Head of Sustainability at EY Ireland, says that multinational corporations (MNCs) attracted to the country by IDA Ireland over the years will be vital to progress. “We have great innovation ecosystems in Ireland made up of some of the best and biggest multinationals in the world. We need them to help us achieve those green targets.” Sercovich agrees that MNCs add a rigour partly driven by stakeholder pressure and the shift to sustainable finance: “What they bring to the equation is a global perspective. They’re very exposed to people like Larry Fink [CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager] who are telling them, ‘You’re not doing enough’.” IDA Ireland, for its part, wants the country to be “one of the best in the world for attracting sustainable FDI”, says Collum, who notes that currently two-thirds of IDA Ireland’s 100 top client companies are members of the global initiative Carbon Disclosure Project, which helps companies publicly disclose their environmental impact each year. Collum points to initiatives by high-profile MNCs such as Google, Apple and Amazon as showing the way forward. “Multinationals will lead the way in terms of their know-how,” he says. Among numerous examples, Amazon is investing in wind farms in Galway, Donegal and Cork to power its data centres and deliver electricity to the grid. In Tallaght, South Dublin, it aims to use waste heat from its data centre to heat nearby office buildings, the first large-scale district heating network of its kind in Ireland and the UK. Astellas, the leading Japanese pharmaceutical MNC has recently won the Energy Team of the Year award at the 2020 SEAI Energy awards run by SEAI, Ireland’s national sustainable energy authority.

Ireland aims to develop 5 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

5 GW

In this regard, the five-year Climate Ready programme, aimed at upskilling SMEs to manage climate risks and thrive in the green economy, is described by BITC’s Sercovich as an initiative with “huge scope”. The Irish government recently announced Climate Enterprise Action Fund, worth €10m, that will also help companies move onto a more sustainable footing.EY’s Prendiville, for one, believes Ireland, with its agile talent base, has the capacity to become a hub of green expertise — and ultimately should aim to be a leader on sustainability, not a follower. “The scale of ambition shouldn’t be just to deliver on our climate ambition,” he concludes, “it should be to incubate an entirely new global industry.”

Ireland’s 100 top client companies are members of the global initiative Carbon Disclosure Project.

Find out more about investing in Ireland here

Can Ireland turn itself into a green tiger?

257,000 people are directly employed by FDI in Ireland.

Growth

FDI is responsible for 463,000 jobs in the Irish economy

Ireland is one of the world’s most open economies; proportionally it has the fourth highest international workforce in the EU. Visit Cork, for instance, and you will find plenty of multinational companies (MNCs) that have had a base in the city for decades — including Pfizer, Boston Scientific, DePuy Synthes, Stryker, Pepsi, GSK and Eli Lilly.Ireland’s success in attracting investment through pro-business policies, committed EU membership, and its youthful talent pool are widely acknowledged. Its educated workforce, in particular, will stand it in good stead coming out of the pandemic. Youth is on Ireland’s side, too. “We have the youngest population in Europe — about half the population is under the age of 34. So there's a strong pool of talent here,” says Rachel Shelly, Head of Medical Technologies at IDA Ireland, “but through our EU membership we also have access to the European market for talent — that’s been a great benefit for multinationals.”MNCs frequently cite the Irish workforce’s adaptability and flexibility as a key benefit. “Companies can evolve what they’re doing: they can scale, they can pivot and the workforce will adapt with them,” says Shelly.

In 2019, FDI contributed €25.2 billion to the Irish economy.

€25bn

9 of the top 10 pharma companies in the world14 of the world’s 15 top medtech companies

Ireland is home to…

There are plenty of other draws — not least for US multinationals the fact that Ireland is the only English-speaking country in the eurozone, providing a gateway to the European market.Significantly, interest has started coming from other directions. “We are increasingly seeing Ireland’s attractiveness as a European base being recognised by Asian investors, who in turn may be able to leverage Ireland as a platform for the US and other markets,” says Liam Diamond, Head of FDI/International Tax, PwC Ireland.Another strength would be the fact that the country is the fastest growing digital economy within EU. That has helped during the pandemic as businesses have turned to new ways of doing business. To drive further transformation, the new Advanced Manufacturing Centre in Limerick, is designed to help MNCs and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to digitise their manufacturing and adopt and scale the latest technologies to drive the next wave of manufacturing.More broadly, IDA Ireland and other government agencies, such as Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland, have over several decades applied joined-up thinking in identifying emerging trends and nurturing collaborative business ecosystems in Dublin and regional clusters in cities such as Cork, Limerick and Galway. Galway has become a global hub for medtech and is home to 14 of the world's top 15 medtech companies, part of a nexus of interconnected businesses — SMEs, OEMs, MNCs — in a co-location with Cúram, the transdisciplinary research centre based at the National University of Ireland, Galway that brings academics and industry together to develop next-generation medical devices.

Ireland is home to 20 of the world’s top 25 financial services companies.

Being a small country helps foster these collaborative connections. “The scale of our island means you’re never within a long distance from a university or from another academic centre,” notes IDA Ireland’s Shelly. Ireland’s Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF), worth €500 million, exemplifies the drive towards interconnected development. The DTIF promotes collaboration between MNCs and SMEs and academics on cutting-edge research into next-generation solutions. “We’re very much about driving that ecosystem for the good of industry and academia,” says Shelly.IDA Ireland is encouraging further growth through its five-pillar 2021-2024 <a href='https://www.idaireland.com/about-ida/driving-recovery-and-sustainable-growth-2021-2024'>strategy</a>, which includes a raft of investments such as €116bn for infrastructure and capital works under Ireland’s National Development Plan. In attracting future growth, Ireland’s track record on FDI is a proof point in itself. “Investors want a ‘tried and tested’ location,” says PwC’s Diamond. “One of the first questions they ask is ‘who from my sector has already used Ireland?’ and this track record gives them great comfort.”

Almost 30 per cent of higher-education students in Ireland are enrolled in STEM courses.

The secrets of attraction: how Ireland lures multinationals

Tech makes connections in Dublin

The human factor in Dublin 7

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3 <a href='https://www.ft.com/content/46098033-7696-4e3f-b7f3-065385490e72'>https://www.ft.com/content/46098033-7696-4e3f-b7f3-065385490e72</a>

4 <a href='https://www.ft.com/content/d6adb73d-cd56-403e-a6d6-b352a29eec2e'>https://www.ft.com/content/d6adb73d-cd56-403e-a6d6-b352a29eec2e</a>

5<a href='https://www.ft.com/content/bea22950-e5cb-4a21-9f5e-114892788ce8'>https://www.ft.com/content/bea22950-e5cb-4a21-9f5e-114892788ce8 </a>

6 <a href='https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/04/30/2-years-digital-transformation-2-months/'>https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/04/30/2-years-digital-transformation-2-months/</a>

7 <a href='https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/global-survey-the-state-of-ai-in-2020'>https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/global-survey-the-state-of-ai-in-2020 </a>

8 <a href='https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/more-than-95-of-people-favour-some-form-of-remote-working-after-pandemic-1.4568285'>https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/more-than-95-of-people-favour-some-form-of-remote-working-after-pandemic-1.4568285 </a>

9 <a href='https://www.ft.com/content/1601e314-6d6d-4014-94df-f2858ee64e8e'>https://www.ft.com/content/1601e314-6d6d-4014-94df-f2858ee64e8e</a>

10 <a href='https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/false-sense-of-flexible-working-is-risk-for-parents-and-carers-new-report'>https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/false-sense-of-flexible-working-is-risk-for-parents-and-carers-new-report</a>

11 <a href='https://www.gov.uk/government/news/third-of-uks-biggest-companies-commit-to-net-zero'>https://www.gov.uk/government/news/third-of-uks-biggest-companies-commit-to-net-zero</a>

12 <a href='https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/human-resource-services/insights/environmental-social-governance-exec-pay-report.html'>https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/human-resource-services/insights/environmental-social-governance-exec-pay-report.html</a>

On Fertile Ground

The number of R&D staff in IDA Ireland’s client companies has risen by 55 per cent over the last five years.

RD&I

Almost half of all IDA clients have an R&D mandate in Ireland

Smart-chip giant Qualcomm has been in Ireland since 2015, and its &euro;78m expansion of R&amp;D activities in Cork will create hundreds of skilled roles. Paul Kelleher, Engineering Senior Director, ascribes Qualcomm&rsquo;s success in Ireland to the engineers joining the company. &ldquo;The engineers coming out of college are smarter, more skilled and have this flexibility to adapt to changing environments.&rdquo;It is a concept which resonates with Martin Cotter, Senior Vice president of Industrial, Consumer &amp; Multi-Markets at US semiconductor company Analog Devices (AD). The company&rsquo;s latest R&amp;D enterprise in Ireland is the ADI Catalyst Centre, a 9000 sq m facility on its Limerick campus. Here the organisation works collaboratively with customers, including Johnson &amp; Johnson, and research partners in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and digital healthcare.

Ireland is 11th in global scientific rankings for overall quality of scientific research.

812 international bodies, and has signed 900 collaborative research agreements with 470 global companies.

SFI Ireland partners with…

Cotter attributes the success of AD&rsquo;s Irish operations in part to its workers bringing an &ldquo;automatic team dynamic,&rdquo; an &ldquo;inclination to connect&rdquo; and being &ldquo;willing to cope with uncertainty&rdquo; in solving problems. That collaborative mindset has made AD&rsquo;s Irish site a hub for its European R&amp;D. &ldquo;We work closely with teams all across the world. Ireland is too small a country not to be open.&rdquo;This will undoubtedly sit well with IDA Ireland, which sees R&amp;D as a driver for competitiveness, productivity and economic growth. The agency has set a target of &euro;3.8bn in cumulative RD&amp;I investments over the next four years in areas such as robotic process automation, AI and digitisation.Key to RD&amp;I in Ireland is a model that sees multinationals such as Analog Devices and Qualcomm collaborating on research with a network of 16 research centres part funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the country&rsquo;s chief funder of science research. This is strengthened through several close partnerships with third-level institutions such as the University of Limerick and University College Cork.With some funding coming from industry, research at SFI centres cover strategic areas of importance for Ireland, including pharma, big data, medical devices, nanotechnology, applied geosciences, software, digital content and telecommunications. Crucially, SFI will only fund centres whose research is internationally peer-reviewed as excellent.&ldquo;Companies can access publicly funded research and collaborate with those researchers quite easily,&rdquo; says D&oacute;nal Travers, IDA Ireland&rsquo;s Head of Technology, Consumer and Business Services, &ldquo;with well-defined structures for working out who owns IP at the end of it, and how that IP might be used and leveraged&rdquo;.

In 2020, the IDA secured 246 new FDI investments, of which almost 20 per cent were in R&D.

Qualcomm, for example, is collaborating with CeADAR, the SFI centre for applied AI. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to predict where we want to be in three years&rsquo; time, and so we&rsquo;re joining with organisations that will give us an insight,&rdquo; says Kelleher, &ldquo;but [we] also discuss with them about what they need to be looking at going forward.&rdquo;D&oacute;nal Travers says that Ireland&rsquo;s 25 per cent R&amp;D tax credit, introduced in 2004, is an important incentive for companies, removing some of the costs of building IP and solving technical challenges through innovation. These businesses can also leverage cash incentives from IDA Ireland that help accelerate and scale R&amp;D activities.Professor Mark Ferguson, Director General of SFI, is confident of Ireland&rsquo;s potential as an innovation-rich economy. &ldquo;We are already the most R&amp;D-efficient country in Europe. For every euro spent on R&amp;D in Ireland, we produce more innovation outputs than any other country in Europe. Our aim now is to move to being an innovation leader.&rdquo;Ferguson is pleased that Ireland now has a cabinet-level minister with responsibility for higher education and science. Simon Harris, who heads the Department for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has described continued R&amp;D investment as &ldquo;critical&rdquo; for the economy.Ireland&rsquo;s start-up culture, which has thrived over the past 15 years, is another important factor in the evolution of Ireland&rsquo;s innovation landscape. As IDA&rsquo;s Travers points out, blue chip names such as Verizon, Intel, Apple, Google and Bloomberg have all been keen to acquire start-ups and more established indigenous companies over the last five years for their innovation and talent.&ldquo;We then see those acquiring companies building research and innovation activities at scale,&rdquo; he says. A good example of this is IBM, which has bought Irish companies and established a scaled software capability in Dublin &ndash; also the location of its only research lab in the EU. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s because of the ability to access the research ecosystem here and to leverage new innovation.&rdquo;Ireland&rsquo;s trump card will always be its agile and creative workforce. &ldquo;Irish people are considered to be problem-solvers &mdash; you could call it an X factor,&rdquo; Travers concludes. &ldquo;Companies need creative people who are not afraid to be bold and push the boundaries, but in a way that doesn&rsquo;t put their employer at risk, and Irish people have a good understanding of how to do that. It&rsquo;s hard to put a figure against that in terms of value, but it&rsquo;s a really important factor.&rdquo;

Ireland’s 25 per cent R&D tax credit, introduced in 2004, is an important incentive for companies.

The Innovation Game

Accounting for annual exports of €62bn.

BIOPHARMA

More than 85 pharmaceutical companies operate in Ireland

The size of the pharmaceutical industry has almost doubled over the last decade, says Rory Mullen, Head of Biopharma and Food at IDA Ireland. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve gone from about 22,000 people to almost 40,000 today &mdash; that&rsquo;s quite an achievement.&rdquo;The core of the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland is high-end manufacturing, says Mullen, and the way in which companies kept running without interruption through the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated its deep-rooted resilience. &ldquo;There was a smooth transition and no disruption to supply.&rdquo;Ireland has kept its competitive edge as a life sciences stronghold in the last decade by maintaining investments in the long-established sector of small molecule drugs while winning new investments in the booming field of biologics products. It is now targeting the emerging space of cell and gene therapy.&ldquo;A lot of [small molecule] API manufacturing has been moving to lower cost locations in Asia and elsewhere,&rdquo; says Mullen, &ldquo;but I think companies have realised they need the expertise that is developed in locations such as Ireland, particularly in the early stages of development.&rdquo;

Ireland is the 3rd largest net exporter of pharmaceuticals in the world.

5 of the 8 global top-selling drugs, making it the world’s largest net exporter of pharmaceuticals.

Ireland produces…

Providing that pool of expertise was the impetus behind the Irish government&rsquo;s establishment of the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research &amp; Training (NIBRT), based in Dublin, in 2011. NIBRT trains around 4,500 people a year, providing a pipeline of brand-new talent and delivering customised training for industry professionals in the latest technologies, including complex biomanufacturing processes.Killian O&rsquo;Driscoll, Director of Projects at NIBRT, points to a global shortfall in biopharma talent. &ldquo;It is still a relatively new industry, driven by technology, and it&rsquo;s changing rapidly, as we see with the impact of cell and gene therapies, for example, which are highly complex. But there&rsquo;s an ever-increasing global shortfall in the talent that&rsquo;s available. So, if a country or location has a supply of talent and biopharma manufacturing, that&rsquo;s very attractive for investment.&rdquo;NIBRT has been so successful that it is licensing its training programmes globally in locations such as the US, Australia, Canada, China, and South Korea. It also partners with industries in forward-looking training. The Biopharma 4.0 Alliance, set up with Boston Consulting in 2019, established what O&rsquo;Driscoll calls a &ldquo;digital demonstrator&rdquo; to help biopharma companies apply digital technologies to drive efficiencies in their manufacturing. Similarly, NIBRT has just started a programme with Siemens to train scientists and engineers in applying artificial intelligence and data analytics to biopharma production.IDA Ireland is backing the Siemens/NIBRT collaboration, and Mullen says that the advantage of being a small country is the opportunity to have more direct access to government to secure funding for such programmes. &ldquo;Whether it&rsquo;s education needs or setting up training institutes, we can act quickly and be agile.&rdquo;The considerable number of pharmaceutical companies firmly established in Ireland is attractive for prospective entrants. &ldquo;Many clients have been investing in Ireland for a long period, and they&rsquo;ve had very successful experiences here,&rdquo; says O&rsquo;Driscoll. &ldquo;That has encouraged them to reinvest &mdash; and each time they reinvest it tends to be a more complex investment, higher up the value chain. So that virtuous cycle of investment is there.&rdquo;

Ireland has an evolving clinical trial ecosystem with 291 trial sites across the country.

IDA Ireland has been successful in attracting life sciences companies to invest across the regions, proving it&rsquo;s not all about Dublin. The regions are particularly appealing to biopharma companies, thanks to lower living costs and low staff turnover &ndash; employees are loyal. &ldquo;You become the employer of choice in a location,&rdquo; says Mullen. One such example is the US biotech Regeneron, which arrived in Limerick in 2014. It hired 400 more workers last year as the company geared up at other sites to produce its Covid-19 antibody therapy at global scale.Niall O&rsquo;Leary, Senior Vice President at Regeneron, says the company enjoys close relationships with third-level institutions. &ldquo;The local universities have been crucial to our success. They have worked with us to develop a biotech-related curriculum. University support has had a huge impact on our recruitment efforts.&rdquo; More than 80 per cent of Regeneron&rsquo;s Irish workforce is third level-qualified, fuelled by an ongoing internship programme designed to build its talent pipeline.Multinationals are also stimulating indigenous companies. These include businesses such as DPS Group and Zenith Technologies, which initially served the multinational market in Ireland but grew to become global businesses themselves. O&rsquo;Driscoll also notes that there is a rising number of indigenous companies focused on drug discovery. &ldquo;That probably wasn&rsquo;t a feature of the Irish ecosystem until the last five years, but it&rsquo;s growing &mdash; and growing very rapidly.&rdquo;Looking ahead, O&rsquo;Driscoll sees cell and gene therapies having a huge impact. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re incredibly efficacious from a clinical perspective,&rdquo; he explains. Although there are logistical hurdles to overcome and challenges in scaling such therapies up to an industrial level, Ireland is well placed in terms of its manufacturing and supply chain expertise. Early this year the Japanese biopharma giant Takeda expanded its stem cell therapy production facility in Dublin, the first of its kind in Ireland.As IDA Ireland&rsquo;s CEO Martin Shanahan notes, Takeda&rsquo;s investment in these kinds of leading-edge facilities represents &ldquo;our strong value proposition. It&rsquo;s a huge vote of confidence in Ireland.&rdquo;

National Institute for Bioprocessing Research & Training (NIBRT), based in Dublin, trains around 4,500 people a year.

4,500

Biopharma in Ireland: a prescription for success

53.5 per cent of 30 to 34-year-olds in Ireland have a third-level qualification, compared to an EU average of 40 per cent.

TALENT POOL

Ireland has a highly educated workforce.

The presence of multinational corporations (MNCs) offering well-paid jobs in fast-growing industries is a tangible incentive for young people, says Gary Mullen, head of Dublin-based recruitment firm Prosperity. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s an incredible amount of motivation to go out and get the right qualification to give yourself the best chance in the marketplace. There is a big motivation here to do well with all these companies coming in.&rdquo;Keeping that talent pipeline in good shape encourages further investment from existing multinationals in Ireland. US-based financial services giant State Street, which manages $4tn in assets, marked its 25th year in the country by announcing it was recruiting a 400-strong team for a new global cyber security and technology unit. Its reason for choosing Ireland again was &ldquo;in large part due to the availability of relevant and skilled technology talent &mdash; existing and emerging &mdash; from universities and third level institutions&rdquo;.Similarly, global chip-maker Intel arrived in Ireland more than 30 years ago and since then has invested around $22 billion. In March it announced 1,600 new jobs at its Irish plant, one of the largest ever single job announcements by a multinational in Ireland.Such success is testament to the &ldquo;collaborative effort between enterprise, education providers and the Government,&rdquo; says Breda O&rsquo;Toole, Head of Talent Transformation &amp; Innovation at IDA Ireland. This, she says, has created a fit-for-purpose tech education ecosystem that is &ldquo;innovative and responsive&rdquo;.That spirit of collaboration and responsiveness can be seen at work as stakeholders set about addressing a global shortage of talent, particularly in the tech sector, which is a challenge for both multinationals and indigenous companies looking to scale their operations.

US-based financial services giant State Street, announced it was recruiting a 400-strong team.

the 4th highest international workforce in the EU.

Ireland has...

&ldquo;It&rsquo;s definitely the case that there&rsquo;s just not enough software engineers in the world to go round,&rdquo; says Des Traynor, Co-Founder of growing messaging platform Intercom. The company is one of many tech businesses who have got involved in a new style of degree programme being pioneered at University of Limerick (UL) that aims to produce graduates who can hit the ground running in industry.The degree eschews classroom learning in favour of studio-based setups and team projects, and will have, as Traynor puts it, &ldquo;hands-on training baked into the programme&rdquo; through several extended internships in partnering companies, including Facebook, Boston Scientific, Shutterstock, and Shopify.Similarly, Ireland&rsquo;s first master&rsquo;s degree in artificial intelligence, launched in 2018 at UL, was a direct response to industry needs. It involved several companies in its development and was was described as &ldquo;a powerful statement of intent from Ireland&rdquo; by technology website Silicon Republic.These two UL degrees typify the productive collaboration between tertiary institutions and industry that plays out across Ireland. In particular, IDA Ireland works to ensure that Ireland&rsquo;s technological universities respond to the needs of businesses and engage internationally.&ldquo;Understanding the needs of business both now and into the future helps shape the curriculum and creates a match between graduates and the future of work,&rdquo; says O&rsquo;Toole. &ldquo;This helps our education and training system to survive and be attractive to overseas students.&rdquo;

Global chip-maker Intel has invested around $22 billion in Ireland since arriving 30 years ago.

$22bn

Professionals from overseas help make up the shortfall in skills, and Ireland scores consistently highly in country surveys for attracting and retaining international talent. Quality of life in a revitalised and more socially liberal country is unquestionably a draw for young foreign professionals, who soon discover that Ireland&rsquo;s reputation as the land of &ldquo;cead m&iacute;lle f&aacute;ilte&rdquo; - a hundred thousand welcomes- is quite justified.Dublin, especially, is viewed as an increasingly diverse and vibrant global hub, its high housing costs notwithstanding, while regional centres such as Galway and Cork are also proving attractive hubs.Domestically, efforts to feed the talent pool start young. UL&rsquo;s innovative degree programme is mirrored in Bridge 21, a secondary-school level initiative spearheaded by Trinity College Dublin that uses team and project-based formats to explore learning through technology.The project has attracted support from businesses such as Salesforce, the cloud-based software multinational, which has partnered with Bridge21 for its CodePlus programme, which encourages women and those from disadvantaged backgrounds to work in STEM and technology fields.There is a branding job to be done, argues IDA&rsquo;s O&rsquo;Toole, to build on the valuable work IDA clients such as Salesforce do in connecting with schools and colleges, parents and careers advisers.&ldquo;Young people need to be shown the exciting career opportunities that are emerging in industry through, for example, the application of technology &mdash; and how lifelong learning can take them on a fantastic career journey though the superb companies here in Ireland,&rdquo; says O&rsquo;Toole.Today, Ireland&rsquo;s thriving start-up scene should give cause for optimism about the positive effect of multinationals in driving indigenous entrepreneurialism. It is evidence of a virtuous circle at play, says Mullan.&ldquo;If you get into, say, Google, you&rsquo;re getting an incredible experience and who&rsquo;s to say you won&rsquo;t start your own start-up in a couple of years, so there&rsquo;s that [sense of] entrepreneurial opportunity. It&rsquo;s creating the belief that people can do it.&rdquo;

Ireland’s first master’s degree in artificial intelligence, launched in 2018 at University of Limerick.

Winning tech’s talent contest

Ireland has an enviable track record in attracting multinationals to its shores through its inward investment agency, IDA Ireland. This series of articles, photo essays, infographics and videos explores what makes the country such a draw for overseas businesses.