POTENTIAL US investors see Ireland as “resolutely confronting its problems and getting to grips with them”, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said after a day of meetings in Manhattan.
Mr Bruton last night cut short his five-day mission to New York, New Jersey and Boston to return to Dublin for an unscheduled Cabinet meeting on the budget.
He completed less than half of his itinerary of planned meetings with 19 senior executives in the life sciences, information technology and financial services sector. Officials from the IDA will attend the remaining meetings.
A spokesman for Mr Bruton last night insisted he was not being recalled. “The Minister decided that since there’s a Cabinet meeting to discuss the budget, in order to attend that meeting, it would be necessary to depart from his investment mission to the US,” he said.
“The balance of the meetings will be completed by the IDA. The Minister had completed approximately half of the schedule.
“Over the last number of days he decided it would be necessary to depart the trade mission.”
More than half the companies targeted by the IDA on this mission are already present in Ireland, where they employ 20,000 people. Mr Bruton said yesterday that he hoped they could be persuaded to “broaden and deepen” their investment.
Asked whether the financial crisis had damaged Ireland’s reputation in the US, Mr Bruton said the executives he was meeting were “pretty well informed about Ireland having made significant progress, that the recapitalisation and restructuring of the banks is already done”.
The view of Ireland’s actions was “encouragingly positive”, especially when compared to other governments’ difficulties in addressing their fiscal and budgetary problems, Mr Bruton said.
“Obviously they have concerns about the euro zone . . . that seems to be more of an issue than Ireland’s position.”
Mr Bruton told his US interlocutors that “Europe is not a unitary state”, which “slows down the pace of decision-making”. But he stressed the progress Europe had made in “developing new instruments to deal with the financial crisis”. He said monetary union “is a unique achievement and one that will not likely be sacrificed”.
This was Mr Bruton’s third mission to the US since he took office last March. His first visit, to California, has already yielded investment by Twitter and pharmaceutical firms BioMarin and Sangart.
“The IDA are competing with 30 to 40 development agencies who are trying to do the same thing we are doing,” Mr Bruton said. For that reason, the names of the companies Mr Bruton was visiting remain confidential.
“We are looking at companies in a targeted way, who genuinely have a fit with Ireland and can have a long and sustained career in Ireland,” he said. “It’s an important part of the Government’s work.”
Mr Bruton said the investment landscape in the sectors he was focusing on this week – life sciences, medical devices and financial services – was evolving.
“There is movement, even in difficult times. Companies who are leaders are proving themselves more adaptable, and they are the ones you have to cultivate.”
The “product pipeline” has changed in life sciences because products are going off patent, Mr Bruton said. “You see companies looking at acquisitions and restructuring.”
In medical devices, a strong sector for Ireland, “companies are increasingly looking to collaborate with smaller companies”.
In the financial services sector, business is moving from the traditional big banks to smaller, more specialised companies.
