Ireland too costly, warns Intel boss

Ireland is getting too expensive for business and needs to improve competitiveness to attract more foreign multinationals, it was claimed today.

The American Chamber of Commerce said Ireland should be proud of its economic boom, but warned it was losing potential investment because of spiralling costs such as energy and transport.

The Chamber's new president Jim O'Hara said: "Ireland is politically stable, pro-business, open economy. But we are continually moving up the cost league table and some of our traditional advantages have been eroded."

Mr O'Hara, who is general manager of computer chip maker, Intel Ireland, called for better post primary education, better research and development and increased broadband coverage.

The Chamber said the Government was clearly addressing many of these challenges in its Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation, Transport 21 and this week's National Development Plan.

"However we need a great sense of urgency in addressing all of the components that make Ireland an attractive place to do business," added Mr O'Hara.

More than 600 US multinationals employ 100,000 people in Ireland and a further 225,000 indirect jobs are supported by US companies.

Last year, US firms paid more than €2.4bn to the Irish Exchequer in corporate tax and €13bn on wages and on goods and services.

The president also told a media briefing in Dublin that Ireland was languishing at the bottom of the international league table for science in schools.

In a survey by the Chamber of 50 multinationals based in Ireland, 75% said their international colleagues commented negatively on the cost of doing business in the country.

More than half of those surveyed said it has become more difficult to secure additional investment in the past two years because of increased costs as well as poor infrastructure and Government and EU policies.

Ireland has gone from one of the least-costly investment bases in the world 15 years ago to one of the most costly now, the Chamber said.

Mr O'Hara suggested that more competition in the electricity and telecoms markets would deliver lower prices for firms.

"It's not for us to tell the Government to break up the ESB," he said.

He added: "We are not giving a laundry list to the Government on what to do but we want to explain the impact of all these costs on the bottom line for multinationals.

"Ireland is coming from behind in many key areas.

"If we look at where we are and where we need to go, we need to increase the urgency to get there."

The Chamber, which has more than 400 member organisations in Ireland, said that the Government must use the NDP to guarantee two-hour access by road to Cork, Shannon and Dublin airports.

It also called for the completion of major inter-urban routes to be prioritised.