REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A LUNCH HOSTED BY ENTERPRISE IRELAND BOSTON COLLEGE CLUB
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT A LUNCH HOSTED BY ENTERPRISE IRELAND BOSTON COLLEGE CLUB, MASSACHUSETTS
Céad míle fáilte romhaibh go léir. Tá áthas mór orm bheith libh inniu.
Good afternoon everybody and thank you for your warm welcome.
It is a privilege to address this gathering of business leaders in such a venerable setting. It is also a unique opportunity to further energise the business ties that connect Boston with Ireland, and to celebrate our long tradition of fruitful business relations. Before I continue, I’d like to welcome representatives from Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland. For many years, these organisations have maintained a strong and vibrant presence here in Boston, serving as ambassadors for Ireland’s entrepreneurs and promoting our island as a highly competitive destination for foreign direct investment as well as a hub for new technologies across all sectors. They have played a valuable role in fostering enterprise on the island of Ireland.
It is a great pleasure for me to be in Boston, a place where so many generations of Irish have settled and succeeded. We are very proud of their achievements and deeply grateful that so many maintained the connection to the homeland and for the huge contribution they made to our development as a country. The Irish, members of my own family among them, have, over the course of many generations, helped shape the life and times of Boston and Massachusetts. Their imprint can be found in all aspects of life in the City and State and today those past generations would surely be proud of the many bridges of culture and commerce that link Massachusetts and Ireland. Even in this tough and testing economic climate those links are growing and strengthening and developing thanks to people like you gathered here.
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 further enhancing the reputation of Ireland abroad as a centre of innovation and excellence.
In recent decades, Ireland has used a formula of education and innovation to drive growth and success in the Irish economy. And I’m proud to say that this formula paved the way for an economic transformation that fundamentally changed the competitive characteristics of our country.
Our commitment to excellence is seen in our National Development Plan which outlines the crucial importance of investment in human capital. We recognize that investment and development of human capital is a life-long process. A range of new measures has been put in place to assist with worker training, up-skilling and even greater participation in our world-class system of formal education.
This deepening of the skills pool will help us to continue to re-position our economy in the production of knowledge-intensive goods and services. To add to our commitment to providing competitive and high quality goods and services, we have placed innovation at the heart of our economic development strategy. We have invested heavily in expanding and developing new areas for R&D so as to ensure that Ireland remains at the cutting edge of innovation and learning. Our goal is for Ireland to be recognized as the ‘land of saints, scholars ... and scientists’.
Start-up business activity in Ireland is one of the strongest in Europe. These companies are the future for Ireland and investment in these leading edge product and service firms is being made by investors in Ireland and overseas. Many of these companies have been established by returning emigrants from the US where they acquired key technology and business skills. A number of these came from this region and a number of these companies are with us this afternoon. Enterprise Ireland invested in over 70 highly innovative start-ups last year and will continue to invest in these companies to support their international growth. This investment will evolve to create 1,000 new jobs in the coming three years and total sales of 615 million dollars of which 75% will be generated through exports. Through the efforts of Enterprise Ireland and other entities, Irish entrepreneurs are fast expanding their footprint in the U.S. Today, there are over 200 Irish companies with offices in the U.S. employing 82,000 US citizens.
Now, more than ever, Irish companies are keenly aware of the importance of dedicating time in the marketplace to talking, sharing information, developing deeper mutual understanding and building relationships with their buyers and partners. For sure, like virtually every country in the globe, Ireland has been hit hard by the stormy economic winds that have buffeted our world this past year but, as our kith and kin have proved decisively in this city and in this country, resilience is in our DNA, adaptability is in our DNA and so too is hard work. We have seen our country transformed by the success that has been achieved over the last two decades or so. We will make the sacrifices and expend the effort needed to secure that success for future generations and we have the huge advantage of having a vibrant enterprise sector in Ireland that is world-class in its capacity and performance.
We have a dynamic export sector that is underpinned by our rapidly evolving scientific, technological and innovation base. With access to a highly-skilled and flexible labour force, Ireland's enterprise economy is well-placed for further growth and development. We have faith in our country’s attractiveness as a competitive and dynamic place to do business.
I am privileged to address this gathering of business-influencers and decision-makers. Many of you have ignited and shaped outstanding business relationships between US corporations and Ireland’s leading companies and I express my deep appreciation to you for that. We know you have the world to choose from when seeking partners in innovation. We’re proud and grateful that many of you turned to Ireland and Irish companies when making those critical business decisions. Today the longstanding cultural bonds and kinship we share are matched by business ties just as successful and enduring.
In a speech he gave in San Antonio Texas a day before his tragic death in November 1963, John F Kennedy, a proud son of Boston and of Ireland, said, “Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall - and then they had no choice but to follow them. This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it.” You could say that, inspired by Kennedy and the story of our kith and kin in this country, Ireland has thrown its cap over the wall of education and innovation, and follow it we will for there is no other way to let the future in.
Once again, it is a great personal pleasure for me to meet such distinguished business professionals.
Thank you for your courtesy and your very warm welcome.