Investment and Development Agency (IDA Ireland)

The Investment and Development Agency of Ireland (IDA Ireland) is the autonomous state-sponsored agency responsible for attracting inward investment. Funded mainly by government grant under the National Development Plan, it has an annual budget of about E250 million, of which 5 percent is supported by European Union programs. The agency reports to the minister for enterprise, trade, and employment, who appoints the chief executive and the board, which is comprised of representatives from the private and public sectors.

IDA operates under the terms of the Industrial Development Acts 1986 to 1998, but the original Industrial Development Authority dates back to 1949. Through the 1950s and 1960s it had a relatively minor promotional role as Ireland opened up to inward investment. In 1970 it was combined with a sister agency that paid grants to industry, and the new IDA became a full-service national development agency, one of the first in the world: It planned, promoted, and negotiated new investment; it could acquire land and buildings; it administered a growing range of financial incentives for investors; and it had the task of developing native industry as well as attracting companies from abroad.

Following a restructuring of the development agencies in 1994, three organisations share responsibility for industrial development. Forfás deals with overall policy advice and coordination; Enterprise Ireland develops indigenous industry; and IDA became the Industrial and Development Agency, with the mission of bringing in new overseas investors and helping to expand and secure their operations in Ireland. In September 2001, IDA changed its name again (retaining the acronym) to Investment and Development Agency, since only 40 percent of investment now fits the traditional industrial classification.

IDA administers a range of investment incentives: capital grants, employment grants, and grants for training and for research and development; and it provides sites and buildings, often in partnership with private developers. The most important financial incentive is the low corporation tax rate: zero on export profits (1956–1980); 10 percent (1980–2003); 12.5 percent (2003–). The agency markets abroad Ireland's advantages as a location for investment: a stable economy and society; skilled, productive young workers; access to the European Union market; and competitive production costs.

IDA is now trying to achieve a better balance of development across the more remote regions and is moving some sectoral divisions away from its Dublin head office. For the future it will focus more on innovationand research-driven investment and will take a wider role in ensuring that the appropriate skills and facilities are available in Ireland. IDA has a staff of three hundred of whom about sixty are marketing executives based in the agency's sixteen overseas offices (six in the United States).

SEE ALSO Celtic Tiger; Economic Development, 1958; Industry since 1920; Overseas Investment; State Enterprise

Bibliography

Forfás. Enterprise 2010. 2000.

IDA Ireland Annual Report 2000. 2001.

Industrial Policy Review Committee. A Time for Change: Industrial Policy in the 1990s. 1992.

Finn Gallen