Speech at the ‘Innovation Ireland’ lunch
Boston, University of Massachusetts Club, 4 May 2012
Céad míle fáilte romhaibh go léir. Tá áthas mór orm bheith libh inniu.
I am delighted to be here in this wonderful setting to meet with you today. This is not my first time in Boston but it is my first visit here as President of Ireland and I can’t imagine a more appropriate part of this country for an Irish President to visit than Boston, the capital of Irish America. One in every four people in Massachusetts claim Irish ancestry, the highest in the entire country, and the ties that bind us together are as strong now as at any time in the long history of connection between this city and Ireland.
Standing here with the wonderful panoramic view of Boston Harbour behind me I cannot but be reminded of the words of John F Kennedy when he visited my own home town of Galway in June 1963. Speaking in Eyre Square the President famously said that if the day was good enough and his sight was clear enough he could see all the way from Galway to Boston harbour and the many Galway people working there, remarking that “nearly everyone from Boston comes from Galway”. As a former Mayor and Member of Parliament for Galway, I would not dare to challenge the truth of that statement; the ties that bind Boston and Ireland are especially strong with regard to Galway and the west coast.
I want to thank the various Irish Government agencies – Tourism Ireland, IDA Ireland , Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Food Board who have come together to co-host today’s lunch under the banner of ‘Innovation Ireland’ and it is on this theme of Ireland as a centre for innovation and excellence that I wish to speak to you today.
Ireland, similar to much of the world, has been through a difficult economic experience over the past five years. We are a small but very open economy relying heavily on the exports of goods and services; for us, the strength of the world economy is vital for the well being of our own economy. In the past twelve months we have seen encouraging signs that as the world economy starts to recover, we too are returning to growth – albeit not as quickly as we would wish. Our export sector is the engine of our growth, our exports are now at record levels and we are recording particularly strong performances in key areas like financial services, software and business services, pharmaceuticals and the agriculture and food sectors.
Much of this will be well known to many of you coming from US companies with substantial operations in Ireland. There are almost 500 US companies operating in Ireland - including 80% of the top global banks, 9 out of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies and 8 out of the top 10 technology companies.
We are the location of choice for the world’s leading new economy enterprises with many of the ‘born on the internet’ companies like Twitter, Google, EBay, Yahoo and Facebook all having significant operations in Ireland. I know many of you work for some of the 70 Massachusetts companies which have significant operations in Ireland - companies like EMC, Boston Scientific, Fidelity, State Street, Covidien, Genzyme and Analog; to mention just a few.
I also want to stress that our trade and investment is a two way street. US companies employ over 90,000 in Ireland, while Irish companies employ over 82,000 in the United States. The relationship between Massachusetts and Ireland is especially significant. Ireland is your 14th biggest export market in the world, buying almost $500 million worth of goods and services in 2010. Ireland is the sixth biggest European Union market for Massachusetts.
This relationship is mirrored by the strength of the Irish footprint here. Over 30 of our most innovative Irish companies have operations in New England, many of whom are represented at this lunch today. People are constantly travelling between Boston and Ireland helping to further connect our two economies which have so much in common in sectors such as life sciences, biotechnology and financial services. I would, therefore, like to recognize the success of the many Irish companies, present here today, that have established in Massachusetts. I want to acknowledge their drive and perseverance in developing their business in the US market-place and in enhancing the reputation of Ireland abroad as a centre of innovation and excellence.
The relationship between Europe and America, the Atlantic relationship, has been the single most important and influential one since the end of the Second World War. It has defined much of the world’s economic and political environment and remains the most important trading relationship in the world. As an island in the Atlantic this too is part of our story - evolving from the historic context of emigration to this country which defined our relationship through much of the 19th and 20th century, to one of a close economic and trading partnership over the past 20 years.
As one of the top twenty exporting nations in the world, we in Ireland are acutely aware that the primacy of the US-European relationship is slowly and inevitably changing. The rise of countries in Asia and South America, in particular the emergence of China, India and Brazil is changing the nature of the Atlantic partnership. However, such change comes slowly; US companies still derive greater profits from their investments in Ireland than all of China, and many of your most successful US companies are using Ireland as a base to export to Europe, the Middle East and beyond. In short, we live in a changing world and we in Ireland are conscious of the need to innovate and change to meet the new challenges of globalisation and the emergence of new economic powers and markets.
For those of you contemplating a visit to Ireland purely for pleasure I can assure you that there has never been a better time to go and Ireland is so accessible from Boston with direct flights every day. Over 1 million visitors come to Ireland annually from North America. I don’t think I would be breaking any confidences when I tell you that Ireland, as the island of welcomes, reserves its warmest welcome and hospitality to visitors from these shores where so many family, cultural and historical connections ensure visitors from this part of the United States are never treated as strangers. In this context, I would like to draw your special attention to
‘The Gathering’ - a year-long celebration which will take place next year, 2013, and will showcase all that is great about Ireland, the natural beauty, the culture, history and our entrepreneurial spirit.
Finally as someone who worked in University education for many years and given we are about to have lunch in the University of Massachusetts Club, I would like to refer to the impressive intellectual powerbase that exists in this city. The incredible number of world class universities and colleges in the greater Boston area and the wonderful synergies you have been able to create between education, research and development is truly astonishing. I am especially pleased that we have a number of Irish graduates here today who are PhD or post doctoral students at MIT; their presence underlines what we see as one of our great natural resources – the intellectual capacity, creativity and adaptability of our people.
Ireland has been long admired for the creative genius that has characterised our artists and writers. There is undeniably something in our make-up that generates an innate creativity which inspires, not only great literature and art, but strong innovation across all creative sectors – including academia, science and technology and leading edge enterprise. Part of the reason for our success in these creative sectors is our cultural adaptability.
We have had to have an agile capacity - while valuing and fostering our own culture to also be open to creatively interact with progressive influences and trends from other parts of the world. Having adapted to English in the 19th Century Irish writers, for example, stretched and changed that language to invent what was almost a new language and in the contemporary period Ireland has four Nobel Laureates in literature.
In science, we perhaps have not made enough of our innovators in science and technology from William Rowan Hamilton in mathematics to Robert Boyle in chemistry to John Tyndall in light physics or to so many Irish scientists at the cutting edge, so many of whom are in the United States.
Just as Irish culture has been enriched by its exposure to other cultures at home and abroad, so the world of scientific and technological development benefits from an environment that is affirming of diversity. I am delighted to see Irish men and women playing their part in this endeavour here in Boston and throughout the world, not least through the increasing number of partnerships that now exist between Irish and American Universities.
Thank you all for taking the time to come along today and join us at this event and I look forward to an opportunity to greet at least some of you after lunch.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.
