BUILDING IRELAND’S HIGH TECH FUTURE TÁNAISTE WELCOMES LAUNCH OF EI SERVICES STRATEGY STRONG FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT IN REGIONS

Mary Harney, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, today (Monday 29th May, 2000) welcomed Enterprise Ireland’s ambitious strategy for the development of the next wave of Irish high technology businesses to the year 2007.

Enterprise Ireland’s current initiative arises from a study co-funded by the European Union under the Small Business Operational Programme and carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers using their worldwide network of resources. That study (the full detail of which is available on the EI website) emphasised the urgency of embracing modern technologies, especially ICT, and of encouraging high tech high opportunity indigenous enterprise as the next wave of economic competitiveness and prosperity.

" "To be successful with this strategy, we the Government must point the way with radical decentralisation of government administration and with the provision of a state-of-the-art infrastructure for both our physical and electronic communications needs," the Tánaiste said.

ITS 2007 is Enterprise Ireland’s strategic plan to develop a significant Irish presence in new areas of opportunity in the sector and to do so as far as possible in the regions.

The plan sets ambitious targets to be achieved in the identified sectors (Informatics, Digital Media, eBusiness and Health Sciences) by 2007. The aim is to increase sales from £1.1 billion (mid 1999 figures) to £3.96 billion in 2007; to increase exports from £0.68 billion to £2.97 billion; and to increase employment from 12,500 people to 29,500 people.

The successful implementation of the Plan will achieve historic and critical change. For the first time in modern history growth in the regions could be driven to a significant degree by organically growing Irish high tech firms with strong roots in the regions. A key component in this development is the roll out of high bandwidth telecommunications infrastructure which provides the opportunity for the establishment in regional locations of industries which require high capacity communications.