Ireland's position as a foreign direct investment (FDI) hub is not in immediate danger under President Donald Trump, a former IDA executive has said.
Gemma Allen, who hails from Cork, is a prominent member of the Irish-American business community, having moved to New York in 2015 where she spent eight years leading the IDA’s B2C Tech portfolio.
She believes Ireland will remain "an attractive location" for US firms despite President Trump signing an executive order earlier this week withdrawing the US from the OECD corporate tax agreement.
"I think that there is a lot of layers to this, and I don't think it's as black and white as we can sometimes be led to believe," Ms Allen said.
The concern arising from the OECD withdrawal is that the US could decide to undercut the 12.5% corporation tax rate Ireland offers to multinationals which could impact our ability to attract them to do business here.
While the OECD agreement has meant Ireland's tax rate for multinationals earning more than €750m in revenue is now set at 15%, the 12.5% rate remains critical for Ireland's competitiveness - especially for attracting and retaining small and medium-sized businesses.
But Ms Allen believes there is a lot more that attracts businesses to Ireland other than just the corporate tax rate.
"Ireland has always been on the other side of this narrative that companies are just choosing Ireland for tax," Ms Allen said.
"We've been dealing with that for the best part of 10 years now so that counter-argument isn’t new to anyone in that FDI circle."
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Ms Allen believes Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate is still "very attractive within the continent of Europe because it's still nearly 50% less than what you're paying in some of those mainland countries".
This competitiveness, coupled with a need for multinationals to have a European base, means Ms Allen remains confident that major US companies will continue to do business in Ireland.
"They [US companies] want to be the name for a particular platform, or they want to be synonymous with something - whether that's AI or wearables or whatever it might be - and they want to have a European presence to do that," Ms Allen said.
"If you are looking at a decision tree, which they do, and thinking about Europe as a landscape, I do think that Ireland is still an attractive location for that," she added.
WATCH: Monday's Upfront with Katie Hannon's reaction to Donald Trump’s inauguration on the RTÉ Player
Ireland's great talent economy and a great business ethos are also big draws according to Ms Allen who currently works as a director for law firm Mason, Hayes and Curran.
"American business and decision makers really like the Irish culture and its alignment to the US. It's the kind of 'closer to Boston than Berlin’ philosophy that we sometimes hear – and that's worked very, very well for us," Ms Allen said.
Ms Allen believes investments in Ireland by US companies are vital to their operations in other places and they won’t simply walk away from them.
"They are supporting global services from Ireland and Ireland is a base for a lot of the US and EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Asia)".
"There's a lot of activity happening there that will still need to happen."
Ireland's trade with the US is worth some €1tn a year in sheer monetary terms.
While changes to taxation practices have raised concerns here and elsewhere, EU capitals, including Dublin, breathed a sigh of relief when President Trump refrained from announcing new tariffs on imports during his inauguration speech, which could have impacted Irish exporters to the US market.
Promises of the introduction of tariffs on goods coming into the US has been a key concern internationally according to Ms Allen who said that while President Trump is adding uncertainty to the business landscape in the US, the European outlook remains stable.
"He's adding a level of unpredictability to what it will mean when you're bringing money and IP (Intellectual Property) back into the US - but there is a level of predictability within the European landscape," she said.
Undocumented Irish
While Ms Allen is confident of continued Irish business success, she does have concerns about what a Trump presidency could potentially mean for Irish people living undocumented in the US.
Having spent "years" herself waiting for her Green Card, she says the undocumented Irish face a tougher fight than ever before.
"I know lots of undocumented people. I think Irish undocumented are more worried than they've ever been in the US right now - and I actually can completely understand why," Ms Allen, who emigrated Stateside in 2015, said.
"There's Irish people and people of all different nationalities who have been here undocumented for decades, have built really successful lives – [they] have built businesses here, have paid taxes here, have been living like quite transparent lives in a lot of ways.
"Now there's a sense of traceability and a kind of trepidation around that, which I think is justified."
Ms Allen said the changes President Trump could bring in for immigrants is a scary thought.
"People have kind of been living in the shadows quite comfortably, I think. I think that scares the bejesus out of a lot of people and it should," she said.
"Aside from the fact that they can't go home, [which] I find really sad because I was also stuck here myself for a couple of years and I struggled even in that short space of time waiting on my green card.
"A lot of people have lived very sophisticated lives. So, I think that's really hard to reconcile now as well. What's the new plan now? How careful and how transparent or non-transparent should we be?" she said.
Ms Allen said discussions around helping the undocumented Irish should continue on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Those conversations have to be had. They have to continue, and we have to leverage whatever powers we do have in Capitol Hill," Ms Allen said.
"As well as to the diplomatic channels and to the Irish-American Caucus and all that to continue to fight for it. But I would imagine it's going to be a much tougher fight than ever before."
'Paying a price'
Ms Allen said she has no doubts about staying in the US with her two daughters, even though some aspects still shock her – such as the rollback on abortion rights in some states.
"I do think that right now it's a very divided place – even with reproductive rights," she said.
"I never in a million years thought that would happen, to be totally honest. I never envisioned that I would live in a country where that would be under attack."
She said America has changed since she got there a decade ago with school shootings, such as that of Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 in which 26 people were killed, becoming a more regular concern.
"I knew very little about things like school shootings 10 years ago because I didn't have children and I didn't really understand," she said.
"We all saw Sandy Hook in the news, but I didn't really understand just how infuriating the implications of that are as a mom.
"I have a four-year-old who has been taught what's called an ‘ABC shooting drill’: Avoid Barricade, Confront. It was at the ‘confront’ part where I really felt like I lost my breath.
"It's this idea that you, as a little child, have a line you would use if an active shooter is approaching you. It's something that humanises you to say, ‘I love unicorns or my favourite colour is purple.’
"I couldn't believe that. I thought, this is so insane.
"When I was in school in Ireland, when I was four in the late 80s in Cork City, it's just so crazy to think that this is the world my kids are living in."
Ms Allen, who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters, believes the benefits to living in the US are worth staying put, for now.
"I think we've committed to our lives here and to the professional opportunities here and to building a life here," she said.
"But do I think that down the road if certain things came to pass, I would reconsider that.
"I kind of would prefer a world where [my children] didn't know anything about people coming into school, of course I would, but you pay a price, I think, to like live in the US and it's a tough one to reconcile."
Listen to Gemma Allen speaking to Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast here, on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.
Watch Upfront with Katie Hannon on Monday at 10.35pm on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player.
