SPEECH BY MINISTER OF STATE FOR LABOUR AFFAIRS, TONY KILLEEN, TD AT THE LAUNCH OF JOBS IRELAND NEW YORK.

AFFINIA MANHATTAN HOTEL, NEW YORK FRIDAY 20^TH OCTOBER 2006

The fact that I am here today opening Jobs Ireland, New York, an event seeking to attract people to come and live and work in Ireland, shows just how much our country has changed in recent years. I hope that over the next two days we will see many New Yorkers visiting the event to see for themselves the many employment opportunities which Ireland’s modern, dynamic economy offers.

As most of you already know, Ireland was traditionally a country which produced emigrants, many of whom ended up in this city. For most of the 19^th and 20^th centuries Irish people, unable to find jobs at home, emigrated to countries all over the world in search of better lives for themselves and their families. Almost half of all the Irish people born between the mid-19^th and mid-20^th centuries emigrated.

Today the descendants of these Irish emigrants are to be found all over the world. In Britain, Australia, Canada, Argentina but most of all here in New York and throughout the United States. A total of almost five million people emigrated from Ireland to the United States from the mid-19^th century to the early 1990s. Today there are over 40 million Irish-Americans, making the Irish by far the largest ethic group in the United States.

The Irish-Americans in turn have had a major influence on the course of Irish history and the development of our economy over the past 150 years. It was Irish-Americans who nurtured the Land League movement in the late 19^th century and largely funded the successful Irish independence struggle in the early 20^th century.

More recently the Irish in America have played a crucial role in the evolution of the Northern Ireland peace process. On the economic front it was remittances from Irish emigrants to the United States which helped keep the struggling Irish economy afloat after independence and American companies which kick-started the modernisation of the Irish economy by investing in the country from the 1960s onwards.

However, the picture of Ireland as a poverty-stricken producer of emigrants is no longer accurate. In fact it is hopelessly out-of-date. Since 1993 Ireland has undergone very significant economic and social changes.

Up until the early 1990s Ireland was still a relatively poor country with high unemployment and heavy emigration. As recently as 1988 net emigration from Ireland was running at over 40,000 people a year while, among those who stayed, almost one worker in in every six was without a job. Average incomes per head were only two-thirds of the European level. In those days it was fashionable in some circles to describe Ireland as the “poorest rich country”.

Not any more. In less than 15 years Ireland has gone from being the sick man of Europe to one of the most dynamic economies in the developed world. Irish incomes now exceed the European average, unemployment is close to historically low levels while emigration has been replaced by immigration. The poorest rich country has become the Celtic Tiger in less than a generation.

A handful of figures will help to illustrate the extent of the transformation which Ireland has undergone since 1993. Way back then there were less than 1.2 million people employed in the Irish economy. There are now more than 2 million. Ireland’s job creation record since 1993 is proportionately the best of any OECD country, including the United States.

Ireland is now ranked as the second most globalised economy in the world, according to the AT Kearney Globalisation Index, while the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal have rated it third in the world on their indices. Ireland’s education system has also been rated extremely highly in international comparisons.

The United States has been one of the major contributors to Ireland’s current prosperity. No fewer than 473 US companies have operations in Ireland. Intel, Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Pfizer, Abbot Laboratories, Citigroup, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Bausch & Lomb are amongst the US companies which have invested in Ireland. Between them US companies employ over 93,000 people in Ireland and export goods and services worth $95bn.

And this expansion in the number of people at work in Ireland is still continuing. The most recent figures show that employment grew by 88,000 or 4.6% for the 12 months to May of this year. As a result the unemployment rate has dropped to just 4.3% while long-term unemployment is only 1.4% of the labour force.

This growth in employment has been widely spread across many sectors, including construction, financial services, health, education, information technology, pharmaceuticals and many others. Job vacancies are also running at extremely high levels with employers notifying FÁS, the state training and employment authority, of 60,000 vacancies for the first five months of 2006, up 19% on the same period last year.

The expansion in employment has been such that the old pattern of emigration has been decisively reversed in recent years. Ireland no longer has enough people of its own to fill all of the jobs which are now on offer.

Immigration into Ireland is now the norm, with 320,000 people coming from overseas to live and work in Ireland over the past five years, with a large proportion of these coming from the ten new European Union Member States. The most recent census figures show that over 400,000 people, 10% of the total population, were born outside of Ireland. While many of these immigrants are Irish citizens who had earlier left the country seeking jobs abroad most of them are foreign nationals, particularly from Poland and the other new EU member states of central and eastern Europe, with no previous connection to Ireland.

What has drawn these immigrants to Ireland is an abundance of well-paid jobs. Average Irish GDP per head is now $52,000. Average construction wages are running at $51,000 a year, financial services incomes at $52,000 and industrial incomes $39,000. Average real wages have increased rapidly in recent years and are still rising with most forecasters predicting a 4.5% increase in average incomes this year.

Not alone are Irish incomes high by international levels, tax rates are low. The Irish government has aggressively cut taxes in recent years. There are no property taxes, the business tax rate is just 12.5% while capital gains are taxed at 20%. Social security contributions are also very low by international standards. These low taxes have helped drive the Irish economy forward.

These tax cuts have been achieved while maintaining a strong fiscal position. Government borrowing this year is likely to be minimal while the Irish national debt, at less than 28% of GDP, is one of the lowest in Europe. Current public spending represents just 27?% of GDP. Interest rates are at close to record lows and Ireland was one of the founding members of the European currency, the euro, in 1999.

With an abundance of jobs, low taxes, low interest rates as well as excellent education and health systems, Ireland is a good country in which live, work and rear a family. Dublin is now a major European city. For those who want to live in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan city Dublin is hard to beat while those who prefer a slower more relaxed pace of life will find that there are also plentiful employment opportunities outside of Dublin, both in rural areas and in Ireland’s other cities and towns.

After centuries of sending our best and brightest to the United States, we are now seeking to attract American workers to come to live and work in Ireland. It is not just Irish nationals or people of Irish extraction that we are interested in. If you think you have the skills, qualification and experience then we want to hear from you. Ireland has a well-developed system of work permits and visas designed to facilitate suitably skilled and qualified non-nationals interested in coming to live and work in Ireland.

In 2005 Ireland issued over 27,000 work permits to non-EU nationals wishing to come to work in Ireland.

We are will have new arrangements in place for entry into our labour market by non-European workers. As part of these new arrangements, we will have a new Green Card-type system for occupations where strategic skills shortages exist, which cannot be met from within the EU.

Under this system, Green Cards will be issued for two years initially and will normally provide a pathway to long-term or permanent residency thereafter. The new green card arrangements will comprise immediate family reunification and immediate access to employment for spouses.

The Green Card system will apply to an extensive list of occupations in the annual salary range above €60,000. Green Cards will be available for a more restricted list of occupations in the annual salary range from €30,000 to €60,000, which will include occupations in the Information Technology, Healthcare and Construction, Financial Services, Internationally Traded Services and Pharmaceutical or Bio- technology sectors.

A revised work permit system will be in place for those occupations in the annual salary range from €30,000 to €60,000 for which Green Cards will not be issued and a limited number of occupations below an annual salary of €30,000 where there are significant labour shortages and it can be shown that these shortages cannot be met from within the European Union.

As part of the new arrangements, a number of new important protections for migrant workers who are working in Ireland will be introduced. It is only fair and reasonable that workers from abroad enjoy the same rights and protections as Irish workers.

For anyone from the United States, Ireland is bit like a bridge between Europe and North America. We speak English, large numbers of Irish people have lived and worked in the United States, the two countries’ legal systems are very similar while many Americans will have no difficulty fitting into Ireland’s strong entrepreneurial culture. At the same time Ireland is part of the European Union and Irish exports have free access to a market of almost half a billion people. Last year Ireland exported goods and services worth $71bn to other EU countries.

Not surprisingly many of those who emigrated from Ireland to the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s left with a sense of disappointment at having been unable to secure a livelihood in the land of their birth. They have since gone on to build careers and rear families in their adopted country as generations of previous Irish immigrants to the United States did before them. They have made, and are continuing to make, a major contribution to the United States.

However, while for previous generations of emigrants the prospect of returning to Ireland was rarely more than an unfulfilled dream, things are different today. Ireland is no longer barren of opportunity. On the contrary, there are opportunities in abundance available to those who are prepared to grasp them.

If you are an Irish person who emigrated to the United States ten or fifteen years ago you will find that the Ireland of today is dramatically different from the country you left. To Irish people who are thinking of returning to Ireland we say: Now is the time to come home. Instead of the depressed country you left behind you will find instead a wide range of jobs and opportunities. There has never been a better time to live and work in Ireland.

The purpose of Jobs Ireland, New York is to educate an American audience about the opportunities which are now available in Ireland. Several Irish government agencies and employers bodies including the Construction Industry Federation and the Public Appointments Service are taking part in the event and they will be pleased to answer any questions you may have about living and working in Ireland.

Whatever your ethnic background, skills or experience you will find that Ireland is a land of opportunities. We hope that you take some time out over the next two days to find out what working in Ireland can offer you.

Finally I would like to thank FAS for pulling out all the stops in organising Jobs Ireland, New York and also the other exhibitors who are taking part in the event. I wish you every success over the next two days now without any further ado it gives me great pleasure to declare Jobs Ireland, New York officially open.