Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce Edmonton

Ireland’s Ambassador to Canada, Declan Kelly, paid an official visit to Alberta in early May. During this time he visited Calgary and Edmonton where he met with key political, business and Irish community representatives.

Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce of Edmonton, Ambassador Kelly explained that the Embassy of Ireland in Ottawa was part of Ireland’s worldwide network of diplomatic missions which along with Irish state agencies such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA were dedicated to the pursuit of Ireland’s interests abroad.

The Ambassador shared his views on the strong political, business and cultural relations between Ireland and Canada which can be traced back to the 1600s when the first Irish fishermen arrived to fish off Newfoundland. Over the following centuries, the Irish made there way up the great St Lawrence River which is home to hundreds of Irish settlements and memorials, from Grosse Ile and Montreal, through to Toronto. As Canada expanded westwards, vibrant Irish communities sprung up across the Prairies and the Rockies. Today over 13% of Canadians claim to have Irish descent.

The Ambassador also took the opportunity to outline the recent developments in the Northern Ireland peace process which has led to a power sharing government in the North with the Rev. Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness as First and Deputy First Minster respectively. The Ambassador also explained that important role Canada and a number of Canadians such as Gen. John de Chastelain played in the peace process.

Turing to the main focus of his address, Ambassador Kelly stated that today Ireland and Canada enjoy a very healthy trade relationship which was valued at $1.3 billion in 2007. Over 80 Canadian companies have bases in Ireland while some 40 Irish companies employ over 500o people in Canada. Indeed, a giant Irish multinational company, IAWS, owns a share of Tim Hortons!

Explaining the background to Ireland’s economic transformation, Ambassador Kelly pointed to several key factors including:

• a young well educated workforce
• membership of the European Union which gives companies established in Ireland free access to a market of almost half a billion people
• Ireland’s social partnership process which led to industrial stability
• a very low corporate tax rate

These factors allowed Ireland to attract large scale foreign direct investment (FDI) into Ireland particularly in the ICT, Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, Medical Devices and Financial Services sectors. Today, Ireland is home to, among others, the top 10 ICT companies, 13 of the top 15 Pharmaceutical companies.

However in today’s global environment, Ireland, like Alberta, is looking to the future and looking to attract and retain the best practitioners, researchers and scientists in order to secure high end, high skill, high paying jobs in the Research and Development.

There is a strong Government commitment to R&D with aims to double both enterprise R&D and doctoral output by 2013. Some $5 billion has been for all aspects of science research and development as well as a number of other initiatives including tax credits for qualifying R&D expenditure

Science Foundation Ireland is attracting world-class researchers to universities and is building on the strong industry - academic links which has built up in recent years.

The Ambassador spoke about his visit to Alberta and the variety of opportunities that exist for future cooperation between Ireland and Alberta.

In finishing, Ambassador Kelly thanked Colm O’Carroll and the Irish Chamber for organising the lunch and remarked that as Ireland has a small embassy to cover the whole of Canada, organisations such as the Chambers of Commerce play a vital role in promoting Ireland and also in feeding in ideas and initiatives to the Embassy which we in turn can pass on to interested parties in Ireland.