Investment incentives in Ireland
Agencies
The Irish Government agencies, the Industrial Development Agency Ireland (‘IDA’) and Enterprise Ireland promote business development in Ireland. While Enterprise Ireland is mainly concerned with the promotion of local Irish industry, the IDA deals with attracting foreign investment projects to locate in Ireland.
There are particular areas in Ireland – the Shannon region (South-West) and the ‘Gaeltacht’ areas (where Gaelic, the Irish language, is spoken) which have extra specific incentives above and beyond the normal investment incentives provided by IDA.
The IDA has offices in Dublin and across the regions. It also has overseas offices in the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The IDA has different specialist divisions dealing with electronics, engineering, healthcare, life sciences, international services, financial services and consumer products.
Grants
The grants available from the IDA are cash payments to businesses which become repayable only where the grant terms are broken within a five year period (or in a very exceptional case ten years), or where the business terminates.
Grants are given for both manufacturing activities and internationally traded services. These grants include capital grants, employment grants, research and development grants and training grants.
The IDA can make available specific grants or a combination of grants (i.e. a ‘grant package’) which will frequently be calculated as an overall amount of grant per job, based on the number of jobs to be created by the grant-aided project.
While the criteria will vary from industry to industry, the typical criteria applied to determine the availability of grants include:
• location within Ireland;
• likely employment/skills levels;
• the value level of the business;
• long-term stability of the industry concerned; and
• suitability of the project to Ireland’s long term industrial policy.
The key factors underpinning a total grant package will be the number of sustainable jobs to be created by the corporation, the location, and the value level of the business.
Every form of grant assistance will be linked to a specifically approved project.
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