Taoiseach Enda Kenny has used a trip to New York to urge American business leaders to "think, buy and invest" in Ireland.
Speaking on the same day as three IDA Ireland-backed firms announced the creation of 485 new jobs in Cork, Kildare, Galway and Sligo, Mr Kenny used a special forum at New York University to lobby 100 executives and investors to put Ireland top of their business list.
“You know how determined we as a nation can be once we put our mind to something,” he said.
“You too can play your part. Whether it is by increasing investment, or creating new jobs, or buying from Irish suppliers, or encouraging your colleagues, your friends, your business contacts to think Ireland and think Irish, every little counts.”
The "Invest in Ireland" forum at New York University had been arranged by former US president Bill Clinton after attending the Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin last October.
Mr Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton are attending the forum.
The purpose of the meeting, and of the speech delivered by Mr Gilmore at the influential Brookings Institution in Washington yesterday, is to foster a cycle whereby investment, jobs and international confidence in Ireland feed each other, Mr Gilmore said yesterday.
“It’s a slow process. It’s inch by inch. It’s company by company that we can persuade to invest in Ireland. Day by day, we rebuild our reputation.”
Standing outside the US Capitol, the Tánaiste seemed to survey the distance crossed in the past year. “When I was here at the very beginning of the Government, we were on the edge of the cliff”, he recalled.
Mr Gilmore said a report in the New York Times that Franklin Templeton Investments in California has bought as much as $2.5 billion in Irish Government bonds was "a positive sign".
Earlier, he told the audience at Brookings, drawn from think tanks, embassies, banks, law firms and the US government, that “For the Irish people, being forced to seek assistance from the EU and IMF was a profoundly traumatic event.”
Mr Gilmore recounted the reforms enacted by the Government, its “dialogue based on trust and confidence” with the EU/IMF troika, and the negotiated improvements to the programme, which “reduced our debt burden by €10 billion”.
The Government cut a further €3.8 billion from its first budget in December, following €20 billion in cuts since 2008. “This brings me to one of the key questions . . . How can we reconcile necessary austerity with a growth agenda?” Mr Gilmore asked. “Given that unemployment has reached 14 per cent in Ireland, this issue is at the top of the Government’s agenda.”
The government’s priorities were to create jobs and to improve confidence among domestic consumers, in particular by helping families with distressed mortgages, Mr Gilmore said.
Turning to the wider euro zone crisis, Mr Gilmore admitted that the EU decision-making process was often difficult for Americans to understand. But things were improving. “It took seven years to negotiate the Lisbon Treaty; the January 31st fiscal compact took only seven weeks.”
Additional reporting by PA