More than two-in-five (42%) businesses in Ireland are planning for international expansion in the next 12 months - up 10% on the previous year - according to the Equinix 2023 Global Tech Trends Survey. The research suggests that enterprises in Ireland are being more bullish about expansion versus the average business worldwide. Globally, Equinix found that 32% of businesses have plans to expand internationally in the next 12 months.

Equinix's survey, which included 100 IT decision-makers in Ireland, explored IT leaders' perceptions and plans relating to expansion. The survey results follow a period of uncertainty as businesses reassessed their economic future and the potential impact of geopolitics on their operations. The research found that 79% of enterprises anticipate expansion at some level - either in Ireland, into a new market, or internationally - up from 74% the previous year. Globally, 74% of businesses have plans to expand in the next 12 months.

Highlighting the growth and importance of cloud computing, Equinix's research found that IT leaders in Ireland are now almost as likely to support expansion virtually as they are physically. The survey found that 44% of businesses with expansion plans will hire IT staff in their new location, while 42% will support the expansion virtually via the cloud. The latter is an increase of 10% on the previous year as more enterprises now see virtual expansion as a cost-effective, flexible element to their overall expansion strategy.

However, these anticipated expansions face external threats such as issues relating to data sovereignty, which has come into focus due to recent geopolitical events. The majority of IT leaders in Ireland (84%) said that the implementation of new, stricter laws would impact their plans. In the most extreme cases, 13% said that strict new data sovereignty laws would mean that they would no longer consider the expansion, while 43% said that they would press ahead with the expansion but it would require major changes and potential delays to their plans. A smaller portion, 28%, said that it would require minor adjustments to their plans, but that they would still go ahead.

Meanwhile, when asked in what areas they felt least prepared to deal with the challenges of complying with incoming or stricter data sovereignty regulations, 70% of IT leaders in Ireland - versus 56% globally - cited inadequate infrastructure.

Peter Lantry, Managing Director for Ireland, Equinix, said: "Our research shows that businesses in Ireland are feeling far more confident about their growth potential this year. With that, we are seeing a marked shift in how enterprises are viewing international expansion. It no longer needs to be a labour-intensive and costly move with boots on the ground. Digital infrastructure is enabling businesses to deploy virtually via hybrid multi-cloud, providing them with the flexibility to scale their operation up and down as needed, without the cost and commitment associated with establishing a physical presence.

"As a leading provider of digital infrastructure for businesses across the globe, Equinix is playing an important role in providing the digital backbone to Ireland's ambitious export economy as we move towards a truly global, digital world of business."

John O'Donoghue, Senior Global Solutions Architect, Equinix, said: "Data sovereignty is a critical element in any expansion plan that requires entering new markets. However, it can be a minefield for organisations as they navigate the ever-changing legislative landscape across multiple jurisdictions. To help enterprises with this challenge, last year, Equinix joined the Gaia-X initiative. This is an international nonprofit bringing businesses, the scientific community and political representatives together to confront the challenge of data sovereignty in today's world. By bringing multiple cloud providers together, we are giving enterprises in Europe the freedom to share their data and services ...

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), operating a Global Delivery Centre out of Letterkenny in Co. Donegal, has launched the TCS Product Life Cycle Profiler, an innovative life cycle assessment (LCA) tool that offers a scalable and dynamic approach to product LCA by computing environmental impacts across product lines.

Businesses across the world are looking to enhance their sustainability by decarbonizing their supply chains, reducing their carbon footprint, and building circular business models. Measurement of the lifetime environmental impact of the products they manufacture or purchase is core to their sustainability strategies. Moreover, the environmental impact of any product, determined through a life cycle assessment, influences the purchase decisions of environmentally conscious buyers, creating a need for robust and scalable LCA tools.

TCS Product Life Cycle Profiler enables simultaneous LCA for all products originating from a specific manufacturing facility and offers a comprehensive view of the impact from materials, transportation, suppliers, energy consumption, and processes. It computes environmental impact across multiple dimensions, beyond greenhouse gas emissions, from human toxicity and water use to ozone depletion and particulate matter - and highlights impact hotspots to alert the organization to possible changes. Companies can consequently run scenario simulations for devising low impact, circular product strategies and lead decarbonization pathways.

The solution, built in collaboration with PRé Sustainability, eliminates the challenges associated with conventional LCA systems, namely difficult data management, a non-scalable product by product approach and static point-in-time reports with no insights into impact scenarios or recommended actions.

TCS brings its years of expertise in data management, analytics and digital technologies to integrate primary enterprise data and run activity-based footprint algorithms to carry out product LCA dynamically and at scale, providing actionable insights into environmental impacts across product value chains while adhering to the common governing standards. Additionally, the tool is based on open-source technologies and a cloud-agnostic architecture so it can be easily deployed across different cloud platforms.

"TCS Product Life Cycle Profiler will help our clients identify the changes they need to make their product value chains more sustainable and advance their climate goals," said Suranjan Chatterjee, Global Head, Strategic Capabilities Group, TCS. "It provides unique granular insights that enable companies to identify accurate and actionable intervention touchpoints. That may mean a change in supplier or the impetus to a whole new product line better aligned with a low carbon economy."

"Our partnership with TCS addresses the need for customers to have reliable and transparent environmental footprint information for products at scale," said Eric Mieras, Managing Director and CEO of PRé Sustainability. "It brings together PRé's expertise in the field of LCA and TCS' ability to innovate and transform through technology."

What impact do rapidly advancing ICT technologies have on modern-day society? What are the environmental consequences associated with economic growth? How will climate change and a weakening Gulf Stream affect Ireland?

These are among the questions at the centre of a new art exhibition at the dlr LexIcon, which was launched by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (dlr) Arts Office today.

'Landscapes and Oddities' is the first solo exhibition by artist Dave Madigan and features large-scale paintings, wide vistas and aerial views of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and the wider Dublin area, as well as a large sculpture, which is inspired by the masts and riggings visible in Dún Laoghaire Harbour.

By prominently positioning objects such as circuit boards, transmission towers, and other electronic equipment in his paintings, Madigan transforms familiar Dublin locations into surreal scenes populated with oversized and overrepresented technological components. The relationship between the natural world and the built environment forms a second thematic strand to Madigan's paintings.

Modern-Day Society

Speaking at the exhibition launch, Dave Madigan said: "Information and communications technologies have entirely changed the world we live in and are the leading drivers of all aspects of modern-day society. This has resulted in more efficiency but also comes with unforeseen consequences.

These include for example, effects on the functioning of democracies, the commercialisation of personal data and privacy intrusions, the rapid growth of disinformation campaigns, mass surveillance, and countless other social, financial and political impacts. In my paintings, I show the hardware of this global integrated network overlaid on familiar local landscapes, depicting an urban environment indistinct from electronic information flows."

'Landscapes and Oddities' is the result of the dlr Visual Art Commission, which was awarded to Dave Madigan in 2022. The commission gives artists the opportunity to create a new body of work that is responsive to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. It is funded by the Arts Council and supported by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Councillor Denis O'Callaghan, said: "Dave Madigan paints recognisable landscapes of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County and some of the wider Dublin area with curiosity and inventiveness, presenting us with new interpretations and meanings to our familiar surroundings. Madigan's painterly skill and expertise is extraordinary, and his paintings highly evocative."

Chief Executive of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Frank Curran, added: "The Council was delighted to award the dlr Visual Art Commission to Dave Madigan last year, and we are proud to now host his first solo exhibition with the resulting body of work. We are very grateful to the Arts Council for funding this commission and encourage everyone to visit this exceptional exhibition at dlr LexIcon."

'Landscapes at Oddities' opens at the Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon in Dún Laoghaire tomorrow, 14th September 2023 and runs until Sunday, 26th November 2023 (closed 28th - 30th October). Admission is free of charge. Alongside the exhibition, dlr Arts Office will run a programme of accompanying talks, workshops and events. For further details, visit dlrcoco.ie/arts.

Do you know what types of scams and other fakery you should look out for when using a platform that once billed itself as "the front page of the Internet"?

As the world's 18th most visited website and 7th most frequented social network, Reddit also holds great allure for cybercriminals. ESET's cybersecurity expert looked at the most common scams in detail in this blogpost. Here are the main topics:

Phishing

Phishing is generally one of the most prevalent types of cyberattacks. Typically, it takes the form of an email or text message that poses as a legitimate request for your login credentials, credit card information or other personal data.

Spearphishing

This targeted and more sophisticated version of phishing relies on messages that are specially tailored for one person or a group of people, such as employees of a company. Active Redditors who reveal too much about their lives in subreddits or even on other sites may be particularly susceptible to this attack.

Fake subreddits

Reddit's core feature is its ability to let people create their own discussion spaces known as "subreddits", which are then overseen by moderators. Scammers always look for ways to exploit this, using bots that spawn new subreddits where basically everything is fake - moderators, subredditors and posts lifted from legitimate sources.

Charity scams

Some Reddit forums are dedicated to charitable causes. Unfortunately, they may also become breeding grounds for scams as the subreddits attract fraudsters who pose as legitimate charity services and prey on the empathy of kind-hearted people.

Scamming people in need Some scams also involve fraudsters trying to steal money even from people who don't have much of it and are asking for help.

Crypto scams

Reddit is also popular among the cryptocurrency community, catering to people who follow the latest trends in the crypto arena and seek advice on trading crypto.

Spam and upvoting rings

Spamming is a serious issue on Reddit, one that is exacerbated by well-organized groups that abuse the site's voting system, create fabricated and possibly harmful content and then promote it on Reddit with the help of fake accounts.

Karma farming

Reddit relies on a karma system to distinguish between genuine and fraudulent accounts, but scammers have learned how to bypass it. They set up accounts copy and paste older legitimate content from Reddit, boosting their own karma score and posing as legitimate users.

Guest post submitted by ESET Ireland. For more details on the content of this post, please visit this link.

The Award winners of the 2023 New Frontiers (Phase 2) Programme run by IADT Media Cube in partnership with NovaUCD were announced today.

Thirteen (13) early-stage start-ups, based in the greater South Dublin area, incorporating South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and North Wicklow, took part in the Enterprise Ireland-funded programme over the last 6-months.

The New Frontiers programme provides participating entrepreneurs with access to a comprehensive package of supports including mentorship from some of Ireland's leading business people, funding support from Enterprise Ireland, and access to resources, including hot-desk facilities from IADT Media Cube and NovaUCD.

Following final pitches to a judging panel during a showcase event held at the dlr Lexicon in Dún Laoghaire, four (4) of the participating start-ups, Assiduous, Snappie, Push Me and AI Interpreting, were announced as Award winners.

Assiduous was named winner of the One-to-Watch Award, sponsored by IADT Media Cube. Assiduous is a capital markets technology company dedicated to helping owners of aspiring growth companies build valuable businesses and achieve financial independence. To do so Assiduous is developing a digital platform to do the 'heavy lifting' to prepare business owners and executive teams for efficient and credible market engagement and capital raising.

Fergal Meegan, CEO and co-founder Assiduous, completed the programme.

Snappie was named winner of the Best Pitch Award, sponsored by NovaUCD. Snappie is a digital platform for creative agencies that removes most of the complexity out of the website creation process. Snappie gives designers the knowledge and tools to use best practices when studying the brand and design language of clients and to apply them to specific examples. Snappie generates a fully functioning website which the agencies fully own.

Mihael Melnic, the founder of Snappie, completed the programme.

Push Me was named winner of the Most Likely to Scale Award, sponsored by LEO DLR. Push Me provides a digital coaching platform that is grounded in the latest behavioural and performance science to help companies retain their top talent. The platform is designed around helping professionals feel more engaged and connected at work by empowering them to find solutions to the challenges they face every day in their roles.

Philip Brophy, CEO and founder of Push Me completed the programme.

AI Interpreting was named winner of the Best Innovation Award, sponsored by Flynn O'Driscoll. AI Interpreting is developing a platform for businesses and Governments to engage with the Deaf community using AI sign language interpreters.

Mark O'Brien, founder of AI Interpreting, completed the programme.

This is the second New Frontiers (Phase 2) Programme delivered by IADT Media Cube in partnership with NovaUCD.

The 2022 Programme was completed by twelve start-ups. In the first six months since completing the programme, these start-ups have so far collectively secured just over €930,000 in follow-on financial support or funding from Enterprise Ireland, Local Enterprise Offices, private investment and Science Foundation Ireland.

The start-ups have also created 19 full-time and 2 part-time jobs together with 15+ internship positions with national and international students. In addition, the start-ups have also entered new export markets in the UK, Portugal and Germany.

Orla Reynolds, New Frontiers Programme Lead, IADT Media Cube, said, "It has been an absolute pleasure working with the entrepreneurs this year and seeing them develop their businesses over the last 6 months. I am also incredibly proud of the success our participants from last year have had since completing the programme."

Emma Leahy, Vice-President Research, Development and Innovation IADT, said, "The IADT Media Cube and NovaUCD New Frontiers collaboration is an exciting partnership and brings together an experienced team who offers invaluable support to the start-up community. The remarkable lev...

Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, today marked its tenth anniversary serving Irish businesses, with the release of data revealing widespread, rapid growth in the country's internet economy.

Over the last decade, conditions for Ireland's internet businesses have improved dramatically. Homegrown startups now have access to a more established venture capital ecosystem, a talent pool trained at the world's largest technology companies, and a network of experienced founders. Many of these companies have built tools that also help less technical businesses join the internet economy, enabling a dramatic increase in online economic activity across the country.

Stripe's data provides a window into Ireland's growth. In 2013, only a few hundred Irish businesses used Stripe. Now, tens of thousands of ventures run on Stripe, with hundreds more joining every week. They include technology companies such as Glofox and Wayflyer that were built on Stripe from day one, and heritage enterprises like the GAA, Irish Life, and Smyths Toys Superstores that are reinventing themselves for the digital age. Over the last decade, Irish businesses have processed more than €20 billion on Stripe.

"Thinking back to when we launched Stripe, Ireland's tech scene is like night and day. Tech founders would find it impossibly difficult to raise money and compete for talent, and small businesses simply didn't have the tools to operate online. Nowadays, Ireland produces software companies at industrial scale, and the internet economy is everywhere. With new talent coming through courses like the University of Limerick's Immersive Software Engineering and accelerators like NDRC, I'm excited to see what Irish founders build next," said John Collison, cofounder and president of Stripe.

Entrepreneurs everywhere

Dublin is undeniably dominant in Ireland's internet economy. The county is home to all seven Irish companies valued at $1 billion or more, and to more Stripe users than any other part of the country. But easy access to online financial infrastructure has provided the foundation for rapid growth beyond the capital city.

Over the past five years, nearly all of Ireland's counties grew their payment volume on Stripe faster than Dublin, with the fastest acceleration occurring in counties as varied as Cork, Carlow, and Galway.

County-level online economic growth can occur in a variety of ways. Sometimes it's the result of a large homegrown enterprise transitioning online. But other times, it's the result of many small local businesses ramping up internet commerce. Stripe data reveals that's exactly what's happening in many Irish counties, where online economy activity is being propelled by businesses of all sizes xand technical capabilities. Over the past five years, median-sized businesses in Wexford, Cavan, and Tipperary counties have tripled the amount of money they collect on Stripe.

In Wexford, a sunny county on the southeastern coast known for its strawberries and annual opera festival, more than 1,000 local businesses run on Stripe. They include makers of handcrafted ash hurleys, vintage stores, craft breweries, and a virtual dating app created by a local DJ. Delivery management software Scurri joined Stripe shortly after it launched in Ireland in 2013, and now handles more than 110 million shipments each year.

A similar story has unfolded in Sligo, a northwestern county of rugged landscapes home to more prehistoric monuments than anywhere else in Western Europe. Despite its rural nature, hundreds of local businesses in Sligo use Stripe to participate in the internet economy - including seaweed bathing experiences, surf schools, Bodhrán teachers, and the local Wild Roots festival. Stripe data shows these businesses are prospering, growing their collective online payment volume more than 8x over the last five years.

Going global

New online platforms and financial tools have removed the barriers to international trade, making it easy t...

Shane O'Connor and Liam Carew, winners of the BTYSTE 2023, have been awarded second place at this year's EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) in Brussels today.

Shane and Liam, former students at Abbey School, Co. Tipperary, were singled out by the EUCYS judging panel for their BTYSTE winning project, titled 'Assessing the impact of second-level education on key aspects of adolescents' life and development.'

The project saw Shane and Liam survey 2,000 12-19-years-old students across Ireland to examine how they found their education experiences impacted their social, physical, and mental wellbeing. O'Connor and Carew wowed the judges at the EUCYS with the depth of their research, which found that secondary school is vital for the social development of most students.

At EUCYS, O'Connor and Carew competed against over 130 young scientists aged 14 to 20 years from 36 countries, including EU member states and the USA, Canada, and South Korea.

Speaking on their achievement, Shane O'Connor said, "It was an honour to represent Ireland in Brussels and share our work with the international STEM community. With the level of competition so high, we cannot believe our work has been recognised as one of Europe's best today."

Liam Carew added, "It is fantastic to end EUCYS on such a high. We are heading straight into our first year at University College Cork (UCC) on Monday, and we can safely say that the skills we have developed at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition and here at EUCYS have been crucial in preparing us for university life."

Mari Cahalane, Head of the BTYSTE, BT Ireland said, "We are incredibly proud of Liam and Shane and what they that they have achieved, from their time at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition 2023, to now taking home the second prize at the EUCYS.

"Liam and Shane reflect the high calibre of young STEM talent across Ireland and would encourage students to get their entries in for the exhibition in January 2024 by Monday the 2nd of October. Not only could they get a chance to showcase their projects at BTYSTE2024, but they could also represent Ireland in Europe at the EUCYS."

Applications are open for the 60th BTYSTE, which will take place from January 10 to 13, 2024, in Dublin. BT Ireland is encouraging students aged 12-19 to turn their creativity into project entries.

Entrants are asked to fill out an online application form and simply submit a one-page proposal outlining their idea. Qualified entries will be announced at the end of October and will be showcased at BTYSTE 2024 in January.

A team of researchers at Trinity College Dublin has secured €365,000 in funding to develop an AI-driven platform to address failings in ethics and compliance that are causing large multinational companies to suffer huge losses every year due to fraud, corruption and unethical behaviour.

IntegrityIQ will be a spin-out of Trinity Business School, a top-ranking business school worldwide, and is supported by The Learnovate Centre, a global research and innovation centre in learning technologies in Trinity College Dublin.

The €365,000 funding was granted under Enterprise Ireland's Commercialisation Fund.

The project is based on a concept developed by Dr. Daniel Malan, a leading expert in the field of Organisational Integrity and Director of the Trinity Corporate Governance Lab at Trinity Business School.

Companies continue to suffer huge losses as a result of unethical behaviour. Last year, 16 Wall Street firms were fined a combined $1.8 billion USD because of inappropriate staff behaviour despite having existing regulatory and compliance training in place.

Ethics Officers of large corporations struggle with two main problems in their ethics and compliance training: the availability of relevant content and the delivery of effective programmes at scale. Current scalable solutions are mostly ineffective tick-box exercises while effective customised solutions are expensive and unscalable.

IntegrityIQ will offer an affordable personalised solution at scale.

The IntegrityIQ concept has been validated by leading global companies, who provided formal letters of support for the project. Several companies have also expressed interest in participating in pilots of the new software.

The product, which will be developed with the support of Learnovate over the next 18 months, will provide an immersive environment for employees to share perceptions about integrity risks and corporate culture and to sharpen their ethical decision-making skills in a simulated corporate environment. It will also facilitate the process to make protected disclosures (whistleblowing) and will capture relevant data that is available in real-time for internal and external reporting processes.

On the platform, each employee will engage within an immersive, innovative and completely confidential environment. They will create an avatar that is comparable to their own employee profile and will then enter a simulation where the avatar has to deal with a series of ethical dilemmas.

Learnovate will act as an incubator for the project by having its innovation services team build the product as well as handling recruitment and resource management. Over the next few months, a UX Lead, a Tech Lead and a Learning Lead from Learnovate will work with Dr. Malan, a Commercial Lead, and trial partners to develop the software product.

To stay up to date on news about this project, visit www.integrityiq.io

Dr. Daniel Malan, Founder of IntegrityIQ and Director of the Trinity Corporate Governance Lab at Trinity College Dublin, said:

"This product fills a gap in the market. Many large multinational companies struggle with ethics and compliance training. They incur huge losses every year as a result of fraud, corruption and unethical behaviour. Companies are always looking for innovative ways to address these risks.

"We offer an affordable, customised, personalised product at scale. Essentially each employee in a company, no matter what the size of that company, will receive a personalised ethics training programme. We expect to work directly with at least seven industry partners during the development and piloting of the software."

Tom Pollock, Commercial Development Manager at Learnovate, said:

"Two of Learnovate's biggest areas of research expertise in the learning space are personalised learning and immersive learning methodologies. IntegrityIQ has both of those. It's personalised, it's immersive and it has impact. It's also an incredibly timely project. Every day in the news you hear ...

Asad J. Malik is an augmented reality pioneer and the founder and CEO of Jadu, a next-gen multiplayer augmented reality fighting game for your phone launching this month. In Jadu, players can settle or start rivalries with friends or compete against strangers for fame and glory in this combat game from the future.

Malik's critically acclaimed and globally exhibited narrative storytelling projects Terminal 3 and A Jester's Tale premiered at Tribeca and Sundance Film Festivals, positioning Asad as a visionary in the space before completing his undergraduate degree. Asad was named one of Variety's 10 Innovators to Watch, Rolling Stone's Future 25, Forbes' 30 Under 30, Adweek's Young Influentials, and also made The Independent's Filmmakers to Watch list. He sits on the Board of Trustees for Bennington College as a recent graduate.

In this episode, Pete Townsend and Asad get into the formative experiences that influenced Asad's desire to bring Jadu to life, before going deeper into the story of Jadu and the complex mechanics of augmented reality and fighting avatars. Asad and Pete also talk about bringing together a community of gamers from all walks of life and explore a few themes at the intersection of gaming, augmented reality, and society.

LINKS:

Join the Jadu community on Discord and X/Twitter

Follow Asad J. Malik on Instagram

Episode title inspired by Vision Clear by Lil' Baby

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According to the World Population Review, Ireland is the global leader in terms of productivity, generating GDP to the value of US$119.10 for each hour worked. While much of this can be attributed to the country's favourable tax regime, it is also true that Ireland is a manufacturing powerhouse, particularly in the area of Life Sciences.

In total, 260,000 people are employed in the Irish manufacturing sector, more than 12% of total employment in the economy. We are Europe's leading exporter of contact lenses, immunological products and specialised nutrition products, and number two for exports of vaccines, orthopaedic products, medical devices and complex pharmaceutical goods and medicines.

Ireland is also a key manufacturer of agricultural machinery, precision engineering components and food & beverages. Our level of employment in high-technology manufacturing, at 29% of all manufacturing jobs, is the highest in the EU. According to Trending Economics, basic pharmaceutical products and preparations account for 37% of all Irish industrial production, with food products coming second at 18% and chemicals and chemical products third with 15%.

The challenge now is how to capitalise on Ireland's strengths within the area of manufacturing to ensure we maintain our leading productivity position.

Automation: room for improvement

There is no doubt that when it comes to manufacturing, automation boosts productivity. The use of robots helps manufacturers to remain agile, cost efficient and globally competitive. Statistics consistently show that among the most productive manufacturing nations, automation rates are above average. However, Ireland has one of the lowest concentrations of robots in the EU and among advanced economies.

There are only 1,478 robot installations across the entire country, compared with 245,098 in Germany. When we consider robot density, Ireland has only 54 industrial robots per 10,000 employees in manufacturing; Germany has 397. Even the UK, which is seen as a laggard in robotics and automation uptake, has 111 - more than twice the robot density of Ireland.

These statistics are especially concerning when we consider that we are facing a manufacturing skills shortage. An ageing workforce, the post-Covid 'Great Resignation' and outdated perceptions of manufacturing as an 'oil and rag' industry have all contributed to the current situation, with one recent survey reporting that half of engineering firms had difficulty filling roles.

Automation can play a key role in bridging this skills gap - robots represent the perfect replacement for hard-to-find manual workers in dull, dirty and dangerous tasks. Not only are robots more consistently accurate than a human worker, but they also enable manufacturers to make better use of the human employees they do have, upskilling them to boost recruitment and retention rates while increasing overall productivity.

Future proofing Irish manufacturing

Ireland's Industry 4.0 Strategy 2020-2025 lays out the Government's ambitions to make Ireland a competitive, innovation-driven manufacturing hub at the forefront of Industry 4.0 development and adoption. But this can only be achieved if we increase our automation uptake.

The signs are already strong; in 2022, FANUC established a new automation facility in Maynooth, Co Kildare in response to growing demand from Irish manufacturers for our industrial robots and automation systems. We are also investing in training, both on-site at larger customers' facilities and at our own offices, and are working closely with the Technical Universities and apprenticeship programmes to develop the next generation of engineering talent.

Ireland's manufacturing sector is recovering strongly from the effects of Covid - output was up 23% year-on-year in February 2023. Looking towards a future in which our current tax advantages have been eroded, building on our home-grown productivity will be essential to ensuring our competitiveness in a global market....