IDA Ireland on track to achieve ambitious 2011 targets

Yesterday’s €50million investment by Analog Devices in Limerick together with today’s four announcements and another expected announcement tomorrow from a world leading company will see over 560 new jobs created. We expect the strong flow of foreign direct investment to continue through 2011.

IDA CEO Barry O’Leary

BSB, Sangart, Wolters Kluwer, Analog Devices and Allianz investments add to impressive run of recent announcements

IDA Ireland today announced first half results for 2011, highlighting that it is on track to achieve its ambitious investment and jobs targets for the year. The results show that the number of first time (new name) investors to Ireland, existing companies making new investments and research, development and innovation (RD&I) investments all increased on 2010 levels. The growth in the number of ‘new name’ investors to Ireland was particularly strong, increasing by 40%, with 28 companies deciding to invest in Ireland for the first time.

Commenting at the announcement of results, IDA Chairman Liam O’Mahony said ‘in a marketplace where foreign direct investment into the EU was down 23% last year it is extremely encouraging that IDA is having a strong performance in 2011 and has managed to win an increasing number of investments from overseas companies.’

Accompanied by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD and IDA Chairman Liam O’Mahony, IDA CEO Barry O’Leary highlighted IDA’s results for the first half of this year.  In addition to leading multinational companies, IDA is also targeting second tier and emerging high growth companies such as Zynga, Marketo, Mycroft (Waterford) and Zenimax Online Studios (Galway).

Leading new names to Ireland include Quest Software in Cork, Amgen, the number one bio-pharmaceutical company in the world and Gilt Groupe which is establishing centres in Dublin and Limerick. Two key sectors being targeted by IDA include cloud computing and financial analytics. In the past year Ireland has secured nine cloud computing investments including Dell, EMC, HP and Microsoft and six financial analytics investments including Accenture and D&B.

At the briefing Minister Bruton announced new investments from Belgian, Dutch and US companies which, in addition to today’s announcement by Allianz will create over 300 new jobs.

Belgian software company, BSB, which provides software and services to the financial services industry will create 120 jobs in Dublin.

San Diego based global biopharmaceutical company Sangart, which the Minister met last month when he accompanied IDA on a marketing visit to the US, will build a new landmark facility at Carrigtwohill, Cork employing 120 people once fully operational, and 125 people during construction.

And Dutch giant Wolters Kluwer is investing in research and development in its Financial Services business creating 13 new positions to join its 55 person centre in Dublin involved in regulatory compliance and risk management technology provision.

IDA CEO Barry O’Leary, concluding the event commented  ‘Yesterday’s €50million investment by Analog Devices in Limerick together with today’s four announcements and another expected announcement tomorrow from a world leading company will see over 560 new jobs created. We expect the strong flow of foreign direct investment to continue through 2011.’


IDA Ireland
Thomas McEvoy     +353 1 603 4255
Antoinette Tyrrell     +353 87 757 2053
Gillian Kelly          +353 87 178 9893