Ireland’s second-in-command visited Orange County technology companies earlier this month as her country opened a trade office in Irvine to drum up more investment.
Irish Deputy Prime Minister Mary Coughlan met with officials from Irvine drug maker Allergan Inc., Irvine chipmaker Microsemi Corp. and Costa Mesa-based networking electronics maker Emulex Corp.
The visit coincided with the opening of an Irvine office of the Investment and Development Agency of Ireland, Dublin’s foreign investment arm.
“We are really here to sell a message,” Coughlan said. “We are not on a diplomatic mission,we are on an enterprise mission. Ireland is very good place to do business.”
The visit came as the global recession has hit Ireland hard with skyrocketing unemployment, a ballooning budget deficit and banks that are among the most impacted by the mortgage crisis.
The downturn comes after years of expansion fueled by foreign investors lured by low taxes and minimal regulation.
The open economy that made Ireland appealing during the boom years remains intact, according to Coughlan, who’s from Ireland’s dominant Fianna F & #225;il centrist party.
“We are a small country without a lot of bureaucracy,” she said. “We have a very flexible workforce. We have invested heavily in research, development, intellectual property and innovation. We have a ‘can-do’ attitude, a regulatory framework that’s appropriate. We are very enterprising and we have a lot of young, talented people.”
Ireland Operations
Several local companies have operations in Ireland, including Allergan, Emulex, Microsemi, Aliso Viejo’s QLogic Corp., Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co., Fullerton’s Beckman Coulter Inc. and Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc., a sunglasses maker that’s part of Italy’s Luxottica Group SPA.
Ireland’s Irvine office was opened to work with companies here that have operations in the country and to entice more American investors.
The office employs a handful of people. The head of the Investment and Development Agency of Ireland’s Mountain View office oversees the Irvine site and visits weekly.
The country is one of a few that has a trade office here. Canadian provinces and Mexico had offices here but closed them.
Other countries rely on their consul general offices in Los Angeles.
Ireland had a trade office in Los Angeles for a while but closed it in the late 1990s.
“We are reopening the office now due the volume of collaboration taking place between Southern California companies and Ireland,” said Samara McCarthy, vice president of marketing for the investment agency in New York.
The investment agency also has offices in Boston, Paris, China and the United Arab Emirates.
Western Tour
Coughlan toured the West Coast with stops in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles.
“California has been hugely important from a foreign direct investment perspective,” she said. “We want to nurture and develop many of those relationships and also meet a number of new companies.”
She left here for Washington, D.C., to meet with members of Congress and the secretaries of Commerce, Labor and Treasury.
Coughlan said this was her first visit to OC.
She met with various companies during lunch at Pelican Grill, the restaurant at Irvine Company’s Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Coast.
Coughlan, who’s goes by the honorary Gaelic title of T & #225;naiste, was polished and on message about Ireland, as well as straightforward and casual at times.
“(OC) is absolutely beautiful,” she said. “It’s quite obviously a very good place to live, from what I can see.”
