Government needs to be creative in response to Apple tax probe
If the impact of these are not to inevitably take their toll on the sentiment of foreign direct investors towards Ireland.
Major international corporations will be extremely concerned about unanticipated liabilities and the reputational implications of any EU ruling that is discerned as being adverse to their interests and those of their institutional and personal shareholders.
The consequences for Ireland will be missed investment opportunities and fewer fact-finding visits around the country by prospective investors. This will be felt most severely in those badly disadvantaged areas that have been deprived of foreign direct investment.
The Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade spends in excess of €57 million promoting Ireland’s economic interests overseas but bears no accountability to deliver the value claimed as a consequence of this expenditure.
The department declares that therationale for spending this money are exports of goods and services from Ireland worth €182 billion and 250,000 jobs in Ireland attributable to foreign direct investment. However, over 90% of the nation’s exports are derived from foreign-owned companies, without any intervention whatsoever by any Irish authorities, agencies or the nation’s ambassadors.
It would therefore make compelling sense to have IDA Ireland report to the next Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade.
A rationalisation of embassies, consulates and the 19 IDA Ireland overseas offices, as a well as the combination of public diplomacy with the skills and know-how to secure foreign direct investment, would surely mean that Ireland’s efforts in the foreign direct investment sphere would be more focused, defensible and successful and that job creation and investment is the chassis of foreign policy.
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