Ireland must work ever harder to win foreign investment in a fractured global economy where it has little ability to influence major events, an internal IDA briefing said.<\/p>\n
The briefing for IDA chief executive Michael Lohan warned Ireland was a small country and \u201cnot even a middle power\u201d, with limited ability to shape global trade or investment.<\/p>\n
It said the country needed to keep its focus on things it could control, including competitiveness, infrastructure, regulation, skills, and incentives.<\/p>\n
The briefing was prepared ahead of a trade summit event in March and said companies in the new era of global trade would seek out \u201ccapacity, stability, capability, and cost\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It said Ireland needed to adapt but was well-positioned to thrive in what was described as a \u201cpost-globalisation world\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The document warned competition between countries was intensifying but there were specific opportunities given the existing manufacturing base in semiconductors and life sciences.<\/p>\n
Mr Lohan\u2019s briefing said the year had started with hope that \u201cthings were beginning to steady\u201d but the crisis in the Middle East had turned that on its head.<\/p>\n
It said: \u201cAs a small country, not even a middle power in [Canadian prime minister] Mark Carney\u2019s terms, there is only so much we can do to influence the broad brush of global events.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The document said the emphasis needed to be on \u201ccontrolling the controllables\u201d, especially around providing better infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Mr Lohan was also briefed on Ireland\u2019s forthcoming EU Council presidency, which was a \u201chuge opportunity\u201d to help shape policy across the union.<\/p>\n
Background material provided to the IDA chief said \u201cuncertainty and volatility\u201d were becoming the norm.<\/p>\n
It added: \u201cThe global race to protect existing industries and secure a foothold in future growth drivers has seen trade and investment policy become more deeply intertwined with geopolitics, sustainability, and innovation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The briefing material also said there had been 2,500 trade restrictions imposed in the first 10 months of last year, five times higher than the equivalent figure from 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s tariff policies have resulted in the effective US tariff rate increasing from 2.3% in January 2025 to 10.3% in January 2026,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
It said Ireland\u2019s openness left the country more exposed to global trends, \u201cboth positive and negative\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The briefing said the Government\u2019s 85-point action plan on competitiveness and productivity had several areas that were of particular interest to the IDA.<\/p>\n
This included speeding up infrastructure delivery and \u201csmarter, simpler, more streamlined\u201d regulatory systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland must work ever harder to win foreign investment in a fractured global economy where it has little…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1111,61,60,43,1112],"class_list":["post-462283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-court-and-crime","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-politics-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}