Plan targets global market success

David Clerkin

The agency said Ireland faced a reversal of the economic success of the last 10 years if it continued to rely on foreign investment to create jobs.

The country could no longer offer a low-cost base to multinationals and needed to develop its own set of dynamic, homegrown companies.

Enterprise Ireland chief executive Frank Ryan said Ireland needed a wake-up call and that there was no guarantee we would keep doing well.

“The time to change is when things are going well,” he said.

“Growth will be increasingly driven by indigenous industry and we’re setting out a roadmap for change.”

Mr Ryan said piecemeal change would not be enough to meet Ireland’s needs and that the homegrown sector needed to be transformed. This would be achieved by focusing on hungry, innovative companies that recognised markets around the world where they could succeed and which had specialist, high-value products or services.

The agency’s three-year strategy, which was launched by enterprise minster Micheal Martin, looks to homegrown entrepreneurs to create employment. It aims to develop companies that will grow our export base by E3 billion over three years and double the number of businesses that spend more than E100,000 on high value-added research and development (R&D) activity by 2010. The agency will also grow the number of businesses spending over E2 million on R&D from 30 to 100.

The plan involves a root-and-branch restructure of Enterprise Ireland that places tough targets on the agency. A research unit will spend almost E400m over the next five years, while a new international division, with an annual budget of E27m will take control of the agency’s 33 overseas offices. The government will also put a E20m fund in place to help improve productivity compete on global markets.

Mr Ryan said Ireland needed to become known as a first mover for technological developments and that R&D spending needed to be ramped up to achieve this.