Why are these outfits so keen to be on the banks of the Liffey? Although they often burble about Ireland’s young, educated, English-speaking workforce, there are three main reasons. A quick search reveals 19 big companies, among them Google, Facebook, Airbnb, PayPal, Twitter, Microsoft, eBay, LinkedIn, Squarespace, IBM, Seagate, Adobe, Dell, Oracle… The list goes on and on.
In the early days, the incomers were continental firms such as the crane-builder Liebherr, big pharma outfits such as Pfizer and computer manufacturers such as Apple and the now defunct DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), but in due course the stampede to establish European HQs in Dublin included many of the Silicon Valley crowd. Ireland may still export cattle and dairy products, but foreign multinationals now account for 10.2% of employment and 66% of the country’s exports. And a government body called the Industrial Development Authority (IDA), staffed with zealous technocrats, set out to make it a reality.Īnd boy, did they succeed. In one of those occasional miracles that are the hinges of history, this radical idea escaped the notice of the country’s reactionaries and became government policy. A key phrase in the resulting document was that “a readiness to welcome foreign capital is a necessary complement to secure foreign participation in industrial development”. In July 1958, the Irish government accepted Whitaker’s analysis and instructed him to work out a programme for economic expansion, which he duly did.
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