Looking live at Dublin, Ireland, courtesy of Carol's Irish gifts.
Now Saint Patrick's Day is just a few days away with a big celebration planned here at the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday and also across the country.
Last year, Ireland's domestic economy is projected to have grown by 5% and according to the Central Statistics Office, Ireland's gross domestic product grew by a staggering 12.6% in 2020. driving this exceptional expansion as US demand for pharma combined with anticipatory trade shifts ahead of recent trade adjustments and also a strong revenue cycle among Dublin-based technology multinationals leading the AI transition.
Well joining me live from the New York Stock Exchange to highlight the sustainability of this economic momentum is Michael Lohan, CEO of ID.
Good morning, Michael.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Good morning.
So first and foremost, tell us about how Ireland has actually managed to navigate some of the headwinds in the past year and actually achieve this export driven growth.
Yes, so last year, as we know was certainly the dynamic here in terms of global trade and and and tariffs obviously was a big component of that but actually in the FDI base. what we saw last year is we had a record year of investments in Ireland over the last 12 years, just our announcement at the end of the year, 323 discrete investments, the largest number, as I said in the history of our organization, which is almost 80 years in existence.
And what it speaks to is the depth and the longevity of FDI in Ireland and across sectors, in particular in terms of the financial services sector, and the fintech sector.
Technology and life sciences and companies are really embedding their innovation in Ireland and R&D is a significant growth driver of those numbers and FDI as well as R&D is something that we're paying attention to when it comes to the economy of Ireland, but you also mentioned sectors, so I do want to get your take on how Ireland is actually positioning itself to handle potential shifts when it comes to global demand.
I think that's something we're very conscious of.
As Ireland we're a small open economy, so we've always had to be agile in terms of our approach.
And when we look at the enterprise base in Ireland, it really has evolved over the last number of decades and today what we have is we have an economy that's based on future looking technologies and sectors, the sectors I spoke about in technology.
So for example, the world's largest technology companies have a large Presence in Ireland, but also not just that, they're also looking at the cutting edge of their technology of their innovation.
We saw investments in the last year and a half from Google, from Microsoft, very strong, but also on new entrants OpenAI, and Tropic, Harvey AI all establishing presence in Ireland as part of their growth.
And of course the same can be said across the life sciences sector and indeed the semiconductor sector in Ireland.
And of course this is a time when we're focusing on the advantages that artificial intelligence is opposing, but at the same time we have to keep in mind at the end of the day that humans and talent is key.
So give us an idea of the talent advantage that Ireland has.
I think that's a very valid point because I think all of the conversation tends towards AI, but in essence really what it is technology through the adoption of.
Human capital and in IDA in Ireland we've put a lot of focus on the human capital, not just in recent years, but actually from early education.
So in Ireland we have a very clear strategy in terms of AI adoption and AI literacy across the entire population base.
But at an enterprise level what we saw last year, this is something that was very unique from an IDA perspective.
We supported our existing.
To upskill and reskill almost 35,000 people within the portfolio, and most of that is actually being driven towards technological change, innovation, and digitalization.
So making sure agile that the future skills needs are there and that we evolve the current workforce into the future areas of opportunity.
That's a keen focus for us as an agency and indeed at the heart of Irish government policy.
And while you mentioned the word opportunity, how can policymakers actually utilize the strong fiscal position currently in Ireland to ensure long term stability when it comes to the domestic economy in Ireland we've been very fortunate we are growing as an economy.
We're growing as a population.
Our enterprise base is growing both foreign direct investment and indigenous, and of course that brings other challenges in terms of infrastructure and.
An Irish state perspective, we have the largest infrastructure investment in the history of the state.
Almost €300 billion is being put into future infrastructure delivery in terms of power, and we talk about AI and digital and how important that is in terms of power generation, in roads, in water.
All of those elements are so critically important as we build to meet the infrastructure needs of our population and indeed our enterprise base.
And in Ireland we have a coherent plan at the center.
To build that infrastructure and of course coupled that infrastructure go back is skills.
We have to ensure we continue to bring the future skills both from an Ireland academic output and indeed in terms of attracting inward talent to Ireland.
Ireland is a location where actually world talent can come and actually have a new career and multiple careers in Ireland, and we have to continue to be that open location for innovation and skills.
And finally before I let you go.
We have about 60 seconds here, so you mentioned location and the positioning of Ireland from both a strategic as well as geographic location.
Tell me what is on the horizon as we look further into 2026 and beyond.
I think as we look beyond, obviously we're continuing to see the evolution of the engagement between the US and Europe.
Ireland is that it can act as that bridge between the two.
Two very significant trading blocs and indeed from an Ireland perspective we actually assume the European presidency later this year.
So we have the presidency from July onwards and at the very heart of that presidency we're going to be talking about that bridge between the US and Europe and indeed bringing competitiveness and simplification into business processes as we go forward.
That is something that we will continue to keep our eyes on.
So thank you so much for joining us today.
