Ireland's high-tech success.

• Author: WALCHUK, KEVIN
• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Ireland should serve as a shining example of how a strong government commitment to technological development and attracting foreign investment can lead to substantial economic development.

That was the message of Brendan Halpin, a representative of IDA Ireland who spoke at the Northern Ontario Business Awards and Conference about technology-based business development in the Emerald Isle.

IDA Ireland is an autonomous state-supported company responsible for recruiting foreign investment to the country.

With an annual budget of over 150,000 Irish Pounds and more than 300 employees in offices throughout the world, IDA has been a key reason for Ireland's economic renaissance over the last two decades.

For about a decade beginning in the 1970s, IDA invested heavily in property throughout the country with the hope of marketing it to prospective companies looking for cheap access to the European market.

"We offered man of these properties as ready-made facilities for companies coming to Ireland," Halpin says.

Using land as an investment incentive and combining that with an aggressive state-funded telecommunications infrastructure development program, IDA began in the late 1980s to recruit international business interests, with a particular concentration on the emerging high-tech industry.

With no restrictions on foreign ownership and the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe, Ireland adopted an open economic formula and began to successfully market itself as an affordable "gateway to the European market," Halpin says.

From "potatoes to (silicon) chips," Ireland quickly became a hub for technology-based foreign investment.

"We didn't get a flood of IBMs, Nortels or Apples at...