IDA Ireland chair Feargal O’Rourke said the organisation’s new strategy is about ‘renewing our vows’ to FDI. But those vows will need to ensure Ireland remains attractive in terms of talent.
At the launch of IDA Ireland’s latest five-year strategy, the current climate was described as “the most tumultuous position we’ve ever faced”.
This is no surprise, given the imminent threat of incoming tariffs from the US as well as ongoing challenges such as supply chain issues and the accelerating speed of digital transformation.
However, IDA Ireland chair Feargal O’Rourke was optimistic. “I think more so than any other economy in Europe, we’re probably facing a tumultuous 2025 from a position of significant strength,” he said.
“We want to make Ireland the best, most sustainable, the most attractive country for inward investment.”
He added that the new strategy gives the country the opportunity to “renew our vows” to foreign direct investment, which makes up 11pc of national employment.
The new strategy includes plans to win 1,000 investments over the next five years, which are in turn expected to create 75,000 jobs – many of which will be in key growth sectors such as AI, semiconductors and life sciences.
But, with ongoing skills shortages in many of these areas, how can we make sure Ireland remains attractive?
Future skills
Speaking to SiliconRepublic.com, IDA Ireland CEO, Michael Lohan, said every conversation with a multinational revolves around talent.
“Despite all of the conversation that happens, talent is the number one thing that companies look for because without people and without the right talent, it doesn’t matter what your product or service is, you’re not going to deliver it,” he said.
He added that in order to address this challenge – one that stretches beyond Ireland – he said the Future Skills Needs reports are critical.
“It’s not just talent for today, it’s actually more important to define what the talents for the future are. And that’s not as straightforward or as simple as people might think. It actually can be quite difficult,” said Lohan.
“In some ways, you have to use your best judgment to determine what’s the right base skills that we need and how to make sure that our third-level education system is responding to that.”
While ensuring a steady pipeline of talent is a challenge, Lohan did compliment universities in Ireland for being “very responsive” to industry needs, highlighting the Immersive Software Engineering programme at University of Limerick.
“[Talent] is a challenge, but it’s a challenge for everyone but I think in Ireland, we actually respond quite well to it.”
A new plan for upskilling?
Another goal of IDA’s new strategy is to upskill 40,000 professionals over the next five years in recognition of the changing skills base.
This has been highlighted as a key need in recent years, especially for in-demand sectors such as AI as well as core industries in Ireland such as biopharma.
In practical terms, Lohan said the plan for this new goal means going to client companies and helping them to develop upskilling plans across their entire business using innovation and capability scorecards.
“We actually help them through a ‘skills needs assessment’ and that then in return produces a programme and we then can provide grant-aid support for them to actually do that,” he said.
“We’d be measuring the investment in the context of the scale of the investment in a dollar or a euro context, but also the number of employees and the type of activity which they’ve been upskilled and reskilled for.”
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