GATEWAY IRELAND BRINGING IRELAND TO THE WORLD - Gateway Ireland is launching today at the State Apartments in Dublin Castle. Gateway Ireland is a website, or a new gateway, to the world for Ireland. It was thought up at Farmleigh last year by members of the Irish diaspora and they hope that in coming months Gateway Ireland will be able to announce things like today's news from EA Games on 200 new jobs for Galway. The website's aim is to promote Ireland as a destination for business, tourism, culture and education.
Gateway Ireland's chairperson is entrepreneur and showbiz empressario John McColgan. He says the Gateway initiative is the first website of its kind representing a whole country. He says the likes of IDA Ireland, Tourism Ireland, sporting organisations and anything which will put the country in a positive light will be featured on the site. He says it is a good idea to bring all the various agencies under one umbrella. Mr McColgan says the website will be presented in a passionate, entertaining and engaging manner.
Mc McColgan says the next step for the project is to get funding. He says that while nothing has formally been agreed yet, several multi-national companies have expressed their interest.
Colm Long of Facebook says the company has been working with John McColgan since shortly after the Farmleigh event nine months ago. He says that Facebook got involved because connecting people all around the world is its business. He says that connecting with the country's diaspora will be key to the success of the site.
Liberty Global's Shane O'Neill says he is very optimistic that the initiative will be a great success as it presents a new national narrative. He says we have to rethink ways of how we communicate with our diaspora. He points out that John McCoglan's success with the Riverdance show in China show just how the Ireland concept can be sold abroad.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Electronic Arts, or EA Games - the company behind games like FIFA World Cup, Tiger Woods' PGA, Medal of Honour and Skate 3 - says it will open a European customer services and operations Centre in Galway. It will create 200 jobs by next year, with the help and support of IDA Ireland. The move comes as EA Games expands its work in BioWare. Tiffany Steckler, head of EA's Corporate Communications, says the new centre will bring the company closer to its fans in Europe.
***On the currency markets the euro is trading at $1.2304 cents and 85.49 pence sterling.
