The IT sector tends to command immediate attention whenever corporate Ireland is discussed. Pharmachem is also frequently cited as one of our top industrial sector, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
Perhaps less well known but equally important is the medical device manufacturing industry, which produces exports worth more than €3.7 billion annually.
It is a major employer providing jobs for 22,000 people including 600 high value research and development jobs. This represents 10 per cent of the Republic's entire manufacturing employment.
Its surprising lack of visibility but also its rapid growth encouraged IBEC to set up the Irish Medical Devices Association in 2001. Its membership is dotted across the State from Sligo to Waterford and Cork to Enniscorthy.
Companies include many of the world's largest medical device manufacturers including Abbott, Boston Scientific, Becton Dickinson and Bausch &Lomb.
The product range is also exceptionally wide from contact lenses to cardiovascular implants, artificial joints, surgical packs and two-element devices that blend surgical implant with slow release pharmaceuticals.
This sector has great potential, and not just in terms of gross employment or improvement to our balance of trade figures. There is a high research content involved in the development of medical devices, covering a wide range of disciplines from microbiology and biochemistry to physics, engineering and new materials development.
Traditionally, this R&D element has been developed abroad and imported to manufacturing units based here, but this balance is gradually changing. The Republic is beginning to make a name for itself as a world player in the medical devices industry.
Perhaps in recognition of this the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, who as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment holds Cabinet responsibility for scientific research, agreed to launch a "statement of strategy" last month prepared by the IMDA. Covering 2004-2007, the document maps out a way forward for the industry here, with a particular goal of developing the Republic as a key world research centre for the sector, according to the Association's director, Ms Sharon Higgins.
"This is a highly important sector for the Irish economy," she says. "It has been hugely successful and we want to make that success last into the future. In order to succeed we need to develop a strategy that allows this to happen."
The IMDA board, which involves CEOs and senior managers from 12 member companies, developed recommendations in six separate areas of business. These include fostering innovation and R&D activity; workforce and skills availability; national cost competitiveness; national infrastructure including roads; the regulatory environment; and the legislative framework.
Most of the suggestions actually represent actions that the industry believes the Government must address if the sector is to develop, both in terms of jobs and exports but also in terms of the volume of research activity.
Chief amongst this latter issue is the call for an extension to the R&D tax credits announced in the Budget that allow a 20 per cent write-off on new research activity. The IMDA wants an additional 3 per cent specifically for pre-existing research, saying, "It is most unrealistic and unfair to discriminate against those companies who had already committed to employment in R&D."
It also wants an expansion of the Business Expansion Scheme to support more start-ups; the involvement of physicians and clinicians to develop a "proactive new product development culture"; and it wants the Government to encourage Irish hospitals to use newly developed products coming out of the sector.
On the workforce issue, it calls on the Government to move more forcefully to reverse the long-term decline in interest in science subjects at second and third levels.
On national cost competitiveness, the strategy document seeks continued insurance reform, which it says is of particular concern to the indigenous companies.
It also suggests the Government should "seriously consider" corporate tax reductions to help maintain competitiveness.
The document also cites the national energy grid, broadband access and the lack of a comprehensive waste disposal policy including incineration as problem areas requiring State support.
