Remarks By President OF IRELAND, Mary McAleese At a Business Breakfast
Remarks By President OF IRELAND, Mary McAleese At a Business Breakfast in the kellogg school of management, Chicago
Tá áthas orm bheith libh anseo ar maidin.
It is a pleasure for me to be here this morning in the Kellogg School of Management in Northwestern University. I am grateful to Dr. Don Jacob for his introductory remarks. Is this what they mean when they say that a Kellogg’s breakfast is a great way to start your day?
My thanks also to the World Trade Centre, Chicago and its President, Justice Neil Hartigan for co-hosting this event.
I would like to acknowledge the delegation from the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland, lead by their CEO Mr John Dunne with representatives from Cork and from Newry, Co Down. Both Cork, our most southerly county and Down, in Northern Ireland, have established sister-city relationships here with Cook County in recent years. I know we all want to see strong bonds of kinship develop from these sister-city links and through them the kind of trade and economic co-operation which brings two way benefits to our respective citizens.
May I thank the Kellogg School for providing the venue for this occasion. There is no escaping Ireland in this building. Above the door is a quote from a famous Irishman Edmund Burke “If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free, if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.” For a long time Ireland had neither problem for it didn’t have the wealth in the first place to create Burke’s dilemma of what to do with it. We were a poor country – our biggest export was our people. Not any longer though. The strong turnout at this event is witness to the surging interest in today’s Ireland which is characterised by an economic success, a cultural and political self-confidence, carried in the dreams of her emigrant children, fuelled by their success in America and elsewhere and now lived out in the lives of the Irish people at home.
No one sentence could hope to describe the complex web of connections which bind Ireland and the United States. We are family first and foremost conjoined by millions of men and women who loved this country and Ireland in equal measure. An ocean of nostalgia links us but nostalgia alone does not put cornflakes in the bowl. Today it is the business links between Ireland and the United States which are creating for us Burke’s dilemma, bringing opportunity and prosperity at levels which would have been impossible to imagine even a decade ago.
The United States is now Ireland’s second largest trading partner after Britain. It is by far our largest source of inward investment. Total trade between our two countries reached $ 24.9 billion last year and over 17% of our total exports are now destined for the United States. Approximately 550 U.S. companies have invested in Ireland and they employ over 90,000 people. Ireland attracts over 10% of all US investment into the European Union, and almost one third of all US investment in the electronic sector in Europe.
And that is only part of the story. Our indigenous sector is flourishing and spreading its wings too. It is estimated that Irish-owned companies now employ some 65,000 people in the United States in sectors ranging from financial services to building materials, software and food ingredients. For a country with a population of less than 4 million people and a clear Third World memory, these are far from insignificant achievements.
This increasingly close economic relationship with the United States is inherently linked to Ireland’s economic performance in recent years. The Irish economy has enjoyed continuous strong growth for more than a decade, averaging over 8% a year over the past five years. The economy has been transformed from being agriculturally focused and inward-looking, to one which was ranked by Foreign Policy magazine and AT Kearney this year as the world’s most globalised economy.
As a small island nation on the periphery of Europe we have realised both the importance and the potential of our overseas links. Through membership of the United Nations and the European Union we have been able to engage on an equal footing with countries across the world, building networks of shared endeavour. And of course we have close contact with the global Irish networks which stretch to almost every country in the world, with the United States featuring prominently among them. American investment and partnership played a very large part in our economic success to date and we are confident that the continued support of the American Government, corporations and people will be key to maintaining our future competitiveness as a country.
While Ireland may not offer a large domestic market for U.S. companies, we can offer partnerships which can be vital in tackling the wider European market of 375 million people. A number of sectors may offer particularly strong opportunities in this respect. Enterprise Ireland, the state agency responsible for export promotion, has identified technology, including photonics, biotechnology, digital media and niche application software as areas of particular interest. We now have a vibrant and dynamic indigenous software sector with companies such as Iona, Riverdeep and Network 365 having grown from very modest beginnings to being significant players in their sectors.
Other sectors where we see opportunities for greater collaboration include telecoms, financial services, e-learning and consumer products, including food and drink products. Enterprise Ireland, through its U.S. offices, is working hard to assist Irish businesses to develop and compete in the world markets, including here in the Mid-West. Bord Bia, which is the state agency tasked with the promotion of food and drink exports from Ireland, has an office here in Chicago for those who wish to discuss sourcing high quality products from Ireland. The Chambers of Commerce of Ireland has a complementary role in matching potential business partners.
The advantages of Ireland as a business partner within Europe may be self-evident to some, but they are perhaps worth restating. We are the only English-speaking member of the 11 country eurozone. This means that companies selling from Ireland face no exchange risk and reduced transaction costs with the eurozone which includes the dominant European economies of Germany, France, Italy and Spain. We offer ready access to the wider European Union internal market which will soon expand to as many as 450 million people as 10 additional countries, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, join the Union by May next year. Finally of course, our shared heritage, cultural compatibility and understanding leads to a very open and confident relationship as I am sure the many US companies doing business in Ireland and Irish companies here can testify.
Tourism is another important dimension of our relationship. While the past few years have been difficult for the tourism industry throughout the world, the next year should see a gradual recovery in the numbers of Americans travelling to Europe, and Ireland in particular. There is a daily direct airservice between Chicago and Dublin operated by Aer Lingus, so your personal and business travel to Ireland is only a wave of the credit card away.
Irish business recognises Chicago as a very important hub in the mid-west region and in many ways the very heart of the American market. The positive business climate pervading here has attracted a number of leading Irish companies to the city and region, particularly in the agri-food business. Some of the leading names in the Irish food industry have established a substantial presence in the US market, both through exports and through acquisitions. Household names in Ireland, like Glanbia and the Kerry Group, have established major operations in the US with headquarters here in the Mid-West. Many of you, for example, will know of ‘Kerrygold’ Irish butter. But most of you will not know that it is a product of the Irish Dairy Board and that the Irish Dairy Board employs some twelve hundred staff around the US with its US headquarters here in Chicago.
I could not let this moment pass without mentioning a very unique event which is taking place in Dublin next month. For the first time, the Special Olympics World Games will be held outside the United States. Teams from all over the world will come to participate in these games, which began here in Chicago thirty five years ago. The American Ireland fund will be a major sponsor of the games and I pay tribute to Brigid Hartigan who is a driving force for the American Ireland Fund in the Mid-West. These Games will be a wonderful showcase of Ireland’s legendary welcome and perhaps most importantly it is an all-island effort, with North and South, Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist, working in partnership to make these the best Games ever. Hopefully through their success we will see a glimmer of what the future holds when all of history’s wasteful vanities have been consigned to the past and Ireland’s fullest potential is revealed through the coming to maturity of the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement.
The early Irish settlers who came to Chicago would I hope be very proud of today’s Ireland standing tall and admired among the world’s nations. They would be proud too of this great city they helped to build. But perhaps they would be prouder still that we are here in this room, working together for the people of the Mid-West and the people of Ireland, working to bring the jobs that bring choices, the choices that bring fulfilment.Opefully throughthe
As business leaders you are key shapers of the future. May you prosper and may Chicago and Ireland continue to prosper with you and through you.
Go raibh míle maith agat.