Man gets €45k for delivering 30 top jobs
Glasgow-based Stephen McGoldrick will be presented with an initial €15,000 installment from Connect-Ireland at Cork’s City Hall on Tuesday.
Mr McGoldrick said he was delighted to get such a large cash reward for what he described as a “very simple task”.
“It was just about having the network and the knowledge, and bringing the parties together,” he said. “They made their own decisions after that. It’s not every day you get money like this so I’ll be investing it wisely until we decide what to do with it.”
ConnectIreland, backed by taxback.com entrepreneur Terry Clune, was appointed by IDA Ireland early last year to deliver the Government’s “Succeed in Ireland” jobs initiative.
It called on people to consider their contacts abroad and to identify SMEs considering expansion. It offered to pay €1,500 for every job created, subject to a minimum of three jobs and a maximum of 100.
Mr McGoldrick, who is of Irish descent, read about ConnectIreland in his local newspaper. He logged on to the website and registered as a connector. Through his business contacts, he referred a company he thought might consider an international expansion.
That firm, Entercoms, had earmarked Poland for expansion. However, after meeting ConnectIreland experts, it was decided to locate its European headquarters in Mallow, Co Cork.
Established in 2004, Dallas-based Entercoms works in supply chain analytics and plans to deliver the jobs over the next three years.
Mr McGoldrick is the third successful ConnectIreland connector to deliver jobs to Ireland. Two other connectors provided links to companies which, between them, created 40 jobs here.
- connectireland.com .
