Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft—they all have one thing in common: Irish eyes are smiling on them.
The tech companies are among the largest US firms with European headquarters in Ireland, the EU member nation that has turned itself into an economic powerhouse over the past few decades.
Hurling. Ireland’s tech industry has long benefitted from the country’s generous tax code—which, at 12.5%, entices US multinationals to move their base of operations to the nation—and a young, agile workforce that’s familiar with the demands of the cyber economy.
Ivan Houlihan, SVP for West Coast US at Ireland’s Investment and Development Agency (IDA), told IT Brew that the tech presence in the country is due in large part to a careful strategy of investment and education.
“For the last 75 years, we’ve been attracting foreign direct investment to Ireland,” Houlihan said, adding, “what we do today is we partner with companies internationally to help them build out presence in Ireland.”
Book of tech. For Ireland, which has a young population, cyber-readiness is the name of the game. The country’s workforce is considered tech savvy. Plus, as part of the EU, companies based in Ireland can access labor from other member states without needing to go through onerous visa processes.
The tax code is another part of it. “Google and other tech firms are here for one reason, and it’s taxes,” a Dublin-based Google financial analyst told the Observer in July 2024.
In addition to Ireland’s low corporate rate, it has a Knowledge Development Box rate aimed at fostering innovation of only 6.5% for profits on certain products. This has drawn criticism over the years, most recently from President Trump, who told Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin during a recent Oval Office visit that the country had hustled the US out of its pharmaceutical companies.
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Houlihan argued that the rate is not the main motivator for companies.
“It’s all about the talent,” Houlihan said. “If you want to get a better tax rate, there’s plenty of other foreign locations you can go.”
Snakes abound. But with Trump’s protectionist trade policies, that could change. The administration has expressed interest in resetting manufacturing and business interests in the US by introducing tariffs on EU products.
That could spell trouble for Ireland’s booming economy. A Feb. 25 analysis from Oxford Economics found that the country could be hit hardest by tariffs in part because of their impact on the tech industry and on “smaller, less diversified economies.”
Still, Houlihan feels bullish on what the country can offer. The overall effort on the part of Ireland to make itself an attractive place for the tech sector has paid off by producing a workforce that is cyber capable and an existing industry base.
“It comes back to our long tradition in working with a lot of those tech companies that we’ve built up such a substantial hub in Ireland,” Houlihan told IT Brew.