BRIAN COWEN has received a proverbial pat on the head from US financiers, but it remains to be seen whether the Taoiseach’s two-day trip to New York will translate into fresh US investment in Ireland.
“There’s a general recognition that the steps we have taken as a country have been the right ones,” Mr Cowen said after meeting with top executives at Bank of New York Mellon, which employs 1,500 people in Ireland, and Goldman Sachs, which has a smaller presence in Ireland of between 60 and 70 employees.
Mr Cowen spoke of the “first mover advantage” which Ireland enjoys for having adopted stringent austerity measures before other European governments acted. “There is strong agreement that these steps were important and necessary,” he said.
Responding to those such as Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, who point out that Ireland is nonetheless forced to pay high interest on bonds, the Taoiseach said it would have been far worse if Ireland had not taken the measures it did.
Mr Cowen also spent an hour with senior executives at IBM world headquarters on Monday afternoon, and was to meet with Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan on the sidelines of a reception for the Irish community at the Consulate General last night.
The Taoiseach’s call on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday afternoon was a learning mission. Mr Bloomberg made a multibillion dollar fortune in financial news services. Noting that eight Irish companies have set up in New York this year, Mr Cowen said: “It is very important that I speak to Mayor Bloomberg about the initiatives he’s taken to bring more business to New York, and how we can replicate that at home.”
From his Cape Canaveral-style office, Mr Bloomberg monitors the management of his city on video screens. “He’s been very innovative in the delivery of public services in this city,” Mr Cowen explained. “We may learn some lessons from that too.”
Thirty-two Irish companies specialising in technology, life sciences, publishing and environmentally friendly “clean tech” have entered the US market in 2010, under the watchful eye of Enterprise Ireland. The €500 million Innovation Fund launched here by the Taoiseach “will help Irish indigenous industry to globalise”, predicted Tom Cusack, head of Enterprise Ireland in New York. He expected more than €6 million in Irish contracts to be announced later yesterday.
The Taoiseach attended an informal lunch with young leaders from the American Ireland Fund and IN USA (Irish Network USA). The latter grew out of recommendations in Ambassador Michael Collins’s March 2009 report, Ireland and America: Challenges and Opportunities in a New Context.
The Taoiseach will today open a new Irish Consulate General in Atlanta.
The facility will serve seven southern states and will be headed by Paul Gleeson, the former first secretary for Anglo-Irish affairs at the Department of Foreign Affairs.