DUBLIN TECHNOLOGY HUB COULD PRODUCE NEXT GOOGLE - Three US-based technology companies - Engine Yard, Pinger and Commence - are establishing their international headquarters in Dublin, creating up to 65 jobs between them in the coming years.
Paddy Cosgrave, founder of F.ounders and the Dublin Web Summit, says the news is a very positive vote of confidence for the country. He says the jobs in Engine Yard will be for high-end engineers and points out that successful Silicon Valley companies are all driven by engineers - Google is a perfect example of such a company. He says that Silicon Valley is aware of Ireland - its problems and its advantages. The companies know that Ireland is emerging from its troubles and they look to how well it has done in the technology sphere. Mr Cosgrave points out that most of the world's leading technology firms operate from here and we should be proud of what we have achieved.
Ben Par, editor at Mashable, the world's largest news site on social and digital media is also attending today's Dublin Web Summit. Emphasising the importance of social media, he says that information is flowing faster because of it. He says that the next Facebook or Google could come from Ireland or Israel because of the two countries' friendly attitude to entrepreneurship.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Last night euro zone leaders struck a deal with private banks and insurers for them to accept a 50% loss on holdings of Greek government bonds as part of a plan to lower Greece's debt burden and try to contain the two year old euro zone crisis. The leaders also agreed to scale up the European Financial Stability Facility, their €440 billion bail-out fund set up last year, producing a headline figure of around €1 trillion, which will be deployed in a variety of ways. The fund has already been used to provide help to Ireland, Portugal and Greece. The hopes are that this will be enough to stave off any worsening of the debt problems in Italy and Spain, the eurozone's third and fourth economies respectively. Those remedies will be accompanied by a recapitalisation of the European banking sector by around €106 billion.
*** The Irish banks involved in the 2011 EU-wide stress tests - Bank of Ireland, AIB and Irish Life & Permanent - were included in the capital exercise. The results show that the Irish banks do not require any additional capital.
*** Speaking after the summit in Brussels, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the deal with private investors on the 50% haircut on Greek bonds had been achieved voluntarily, the deal on the EU bail-out fund would protect the spread of contagion from Greece and the agreement on bank recapitalisation would not damage Ireland's interests.
*** On the currency markets, the euro is trading at $1.3988 after hitting $1.40 after the summit announcement. It is also worth 87.5 pence sterling.
