IDA Chief Executive Sean Dorgan has told OnBusiness that while there is a slowdown this year, he expects that his organisation will secure a number of significant projects in the healthcare, pharmaceutical and international services sectors over the next six months.
Mr Dorgan was speaking after he addressed the Foresight Business Students Group in Trinity College today. He told the meeting that even with the slowdown in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), companies like Dell, Microsoft and Oracle, are still hiring staff.
He said that foreign companies employ 141,000 people in Ireland, and he expects that new jobs will match the number of jobs lost in these firms this year. This means that Ireland will end the year with the same number employed in foreign owned companies.
In an interview for RTE, Mr Dorgan said that the final figures will be available in a month, but it was not a bad performance compared to the other ICT 'tigers' - Singapore and Taiwan.
Mr Dorgan said that while next year was difficult to forecast, he thought the IDA could break even again with new jobs matching job losses. And he added that if there is a recovery by mid year - with reasonable growth - job numbers could grow positively again next year.
He said the IDA supported the ESRI prediction that Ireland can grow by an average of 5% annually over the next decade, despite the slowdown. But he warned that serious damage could be done to the economy if progress on the National Development Plan is allowed to slip.
He said that Ireland must push ahead with the Plan to get the infrastructure needed for investment in place.
* Engineers M C O'Sullivan announced 30 new jobs at the opening of their Galway office today.
Founded in Cork in 1967, MCOS is the largest indigenous firm of consulting engineers. The company employs 300 staff at its five offices in Dublin and Cork.
