IDA Innovation Ireland Review 2021

IRELAND REVIEW

HOL D F AST

SUMMER 2021 FE ATURING

Dónal Travers: Ireland’s location at the centre of the world, page 6 Kieran Donoghue on Brexit opportunities, page 8

Mary Ann Fleming Fergus, talks innovation and training

D IVI D E

conquer

Three global firms on the benefits to having multiple sites

Pandemic Growth Spurt Forging ahead with expansion

Theglobal mind meld

TWO GLOBAL MED TECH COMPANIES ON WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

IN A S S OCI AT ION W I T H

This is a land committed to new ideas and new ways of thinking. Where strong and productive links are forged between cutting-edge companies, state agencies and third-level institutions.

Here, like-minded enterprises flourish together in world-leading life sciences, technology, and financial services hubs. Supported by our highly educated English-speaking workforce and attracting talent and expertise from across the globe.

This is Ireland. This is where we make it happen.

See how we can help your business grow. Visit idaireland.com or email idaireland@ida.ie

I N N O VAT I O N G R O W S H E R E

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CONTENTS Summer 2021

Mary Ann Fleming Fergus

Summer 2021 Meet the team

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IDA Ireland

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Head of Marketing Communications Kevin Sammon

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Location, Location, Location

Dónal Travers on how Ireland is geographically primed to be one of the world’s foremost technology locations.

Strong Links

Kieran Donoghue on why it remains important that London very much still has a ‘friend’ in Europe.

Interview Hold Fast

Meg Walker talks to Mary Ann Fleming Fergus, President of Penn Engineering talks innovation and training

Marketing Executive Martina Naughton

Ashville Media Group

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Editor Jane Matthews

Cloud Cover

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Good Neighbours

Expansion has been on the agenda for many multinationals in Ireland – Covid-19 or not.

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Healthy Heartlands

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Divide + Conquer

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Flights of Fancy

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Into The West

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Outward Bound

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The Seekers

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Local Lore

Cover Design Alan McArthur

A Pandemic Growth Spurt

Creative Director Jane Matthews

Published by Ashville Media Group www.ashville.com ISSN: 0332-4400 All rights reserved. Every care has been taken to ensure that the information contained in this magazine is accurate. The publishers cannot, however, accept responsibility for errors or omissions. Reproduction by any means in whole or in part without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. © Ashville Media Group 2021.

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The Leader

Dr Liam O’Faolain and Brendan Sinnott on the important work of cleaning our air and water.

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Art Director Áine Duffy

Contributors Kieran Donoghue Adam Hyland Denise Maguire Jennifer McShane Deanna O’Connor Dónal Travers Meg Walker

Clean Machines

Denise Maguire asks three global firms what they see as the benefits to having multiple sites.

What makes the West of Ireland such a great place for multinationals to do business?

Deanna O’Connor finds the South West is rich in leading educational institutes and worldrenowned research facilities.

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The Disruptor

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T h e Tr a n s f o r m e r

The North West has seen growth in datadriven and cloud service companies.

Adam Hyland reports.

Deanna O’Connor investigates the advantages of tech clusters.

Denise Maguire asks two firms how making the Midlands their home has benefitted their business.

Professor Tim McCarthy, explains the challenges and opportunities currently facing the drone industry.

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The Global Mind Meld

As the race to vaccinate the world gains momentum, Jennifer McShane speaks to MSD Ireland and Industrial Production Processes (IPP), two key companies involved in this process.

How the shipping ports in the South East region have adapted to the demands of Brexit We offer up some reasons to stay outdoors this summer.

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The Innovator IDAIRELAND.COM

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NEWS Summer 2021

NEWS VIEWS and

Want to know more?

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

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New jobs

CHRIS BELLEW /FENNELL PHOTOGRAPHY

A first look at new job announcements, research projects, global rankings and ongoing innovation in Ireland.

Chris Byrne, Senior Vice President, Technology Customer Operations, Workday; An Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD; and IDA CEO Martin Shanahan.

Workday, Inc., a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, announced that it will create 400 new jobs at its European headquarters in Dublin, growing its workforce in Ireland by 30 per cent.

“Since setting up operations in Ireland in 2008, we’ve attracted some of the industry’s best talent to help develop our innovative products,” said Chano Fernandez, coCEO, Workday. “Our Irish team has helped to shape our technology and ultimately supported the success of our customers around the world. With this added support, we’ll be able to continue this great progress by expanding our efforts in the region and fostering a great culture in our Dublin office.”

@IDAIRELAND Great to have @SimonHarrisTD in at @IDAIRELAND HQ this morning at the beginning of what will be a week full of investor meetings with our clients across the world....

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OPE N I NG S O ON

AT Management, a dynamic and fast-growing revenue generation business, announced plans to establish a Sales & Marketing Contact Centre in Sligo, creating 40 jobs this year. The company employs 400 people across the UK. Functions at AT Management’s new contact centre will operate from a 4000-square-foot. facility in Sligo town, which will include sales teams, team management, campaign management and quality management. The Irish site will initially deliver call centre services back to the UK. AT Management has relocated Sligo native Steve Robinson, who was an Operations Manager at its Leicester office, to oversee the initial ramp-up of the sales team. Vimal Prema, Managing Director at AT Management said, “We are looking forward to growing our business in the dynamic region of Sligo and the North West of Ireland, creating jobs and supporting the local economy in growth and providing new opportunities to a diverse workforce.”

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NEWS Summer 2021

Continued Growth

Want to know more?

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

$4.5m ServiceNow continues its strong EMEA expansion with the creation of 300 new jobs in Dublin. The leading digital workflow company announced the expansion of its Dublin office where it will create at least 300 new jobs over the next three years. The new roles will primarily be engineering and digital sales focused, with select hiring across marketing, finance, legal and other corporate functions.

ServiceNow delivered a marketleading 2020, significantly beating expectations across the board and bringing great momentum into 2021. In 2020, the company delivered over $4.5 billion in total revenues, representing 31% year over year growth.

Genesys has created 100 new jobs at its R&D Centre for Digital and Artificial Intelligence in Galway. “Galway has played an integral role for Genesys in developing innovations in the fields of cloud, digital, and AI,” said Barry O’Sullivan, EVP and GM of Digital and AI, Genesys. “As companies need to keep pace with consumers’ evolving preferences for digital engagement across the overall customer experience, we are focusing on hiring world-class talent in Ireland to help deliver technologies that make it possible with our vision of Experience as a Service.” Genesys first established its presence in Galway in 2018 when it acquired local AI start-up Altocloud. At that time, it pledged to create 200 jobs in the region by the second half of 2021 and is on track to meet this commitment. Now, it plans to fill an additional 100 software engineering roles based at its Galway facility or across Ireland in remote positions spanning software development, cloud computing, DevOps, AI and user experience, a 50% increase over its original commitment. As a result of this growth, Genesys is relocating to a larger Galway location in the Bonham Quay development in the fourth quarter of 2021.

NEW R&D JOBS FOR GALWAY

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@IDAIRELAND 30 jobs created in Louth as @SimplyNUC chooses Dunleer as its EU HQ – https://bit.ly/3uoxc7e #WhyIreland #InvestInIreland

MOVI NG U P Jijay Shen CEO Huawei Ireland

From Cork, Alter Domus operates a European hub for global private debt, private equity, real estate and infrastructure investors and managers supporting over €1 trillion in assets under administration globally. With offices in Cork and Dublin, Alter Domus has already invested significantly in its Irish operations, having increased its headcount in Ireland from 100 to 180 people in 2020. To support continued growth, the company is investing in a new workplace for the future at Cork Airport Business Park allowing the business to continue to scale. Alter Domus will also continue to invest in its partnerships with third level institutions locally. This will include the enhancement of both graduate and internship programmes that will become a key source of top talent of the future. Annual intake for each of these programmes is expected to double this year.

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NEWS Summer 2021

Want to know more?

Taoiseach Micheál Martin; Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland; General Manager of Intel Ireland and VP of Technology & Manufacturing Group, Eamonn Sinnott

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

@IDAIRELAND Leading global contract research organisation PPD is expanding its Athlone laboratory, significantly increasing the size of its current facility, adding cell and gene therapy testing to the operation’s portfolio of services and creating 180 jobs.

WELCOME PLANS Intel plans to enter a new era of innovation and technology growth with the acceleration of investment in Europe that will see it expand its Irish manufacturing operations. Investment underway in Leixlip, Co. Kildare is expected to lead to the creation of 1,600 new high-tech jobs on completion. Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, outlined the company’s global plans at an online event, saying Intel’s IDM 2.0 model will pave the way for it to continue to lead through manufacturing. The General Manager of Intel Ireland and Vice President of the company’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Eamonn Sinnott, in an editorial on the company’s website, confirmed that since locating its technology campus in Ireland in 1989, Intel has invested $15bn in manufacturing capacity, making it one of the largest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturing operations in Europe. The current expansion, which in time will more than double Intel’s available manufacturing space in Ireland and Europe, has seen an additional $7bn investment between 2019 and 2021. Furthermore, the company has signalled that there will be an opportunity for additional investment as it plans to announce another phase of expansions in locations including Europe in the next year.

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See page

Mary Ann Fleming Fergus tells Meg Walker why 20 years on, Penn Engineering is leading the way when it comes to innovation and training.

@IDAIRELAND Global leader in innovative fastening technologies and solutions, @PennEngineering has announced a multimillion euro digital transformation of its Galway facility.

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High flyers SITA, the leading IT provider to the air transport industry, is significantly expanding its Agile DevOps teams by over 55 people in Letterkenny in order to develop the next generation of its SITA AT AIRPORTS portfolio. These new roles include software engineers, test engineers, UX designers, scrum masters and product owners. David Lavorel, CEO SITA AIRPORTS & BORDERS, said: “We all are eager to see our industry rebound and technology is a vital component of its recovery.

Through the support of the Irish government, Letterkenny is recognised as a vital hub for software innovation, making it an obvious choice as a strategic location for the development of our SITA AT AIRPORTS portfolio.”

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NEWS Summer 2021

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE ANNOUNCES 150 NEW HIGH TECH JOBS IN IRELAND

Want to know more?

Visit the newsroom at idaireland.com for expansions, announcements and investments.

Building on its long-term commitment to the country, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced its plans to recruit 150 experienced technologists in Ireland over the next two years.

New jobs will be in the fields of R&D, cyber security, software development and cloud consulting. The company has also named Galway as its European hub for cyber security operations and is establishing a new Hybrid Cloud Practice to help Irish customers accelerate their digital transformation. This strategic investment underscores HPE’s long-term commitment to Ireland and will enable the company to grow its operations and employee base in the country, increase its R&D, product development and global cyber security services, as well as continuing to make positive contributions to local communities. “This year, HPE will celebrate a 50-year legacy of operations in Ireland, so I am delighted to be building on our strong history of investing in Ireland with today’s announcement of new jobs and operations in the country,” said Antonio Neri, President and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

“Ireland has an incredible technology-focused economy and a highly skilled workforce, and our investment in the country will further develop the country as a critical market for HPE’s global business, as well as benefitting our customers, partners, team members and the citizens of Ireland.”

Maeve Culloty, MD, HPE Ireland; Tánaiste Leo Varadkar; Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland

@IDAIRELAND High-growth companies @renovo_auto @EllabSolutions @blacksquareca @neuroons_os @LogicManager @TeraweTech @TrustToken @Oomnitza create jobs in Galway, Shannon, Cork, Dundalk & Dublin #IDAIreland #wemakeithappen

State-of-the-art facility Antylia Scientific creates 60 roles in the Midlands with the establishment of new state of the art manufacturing facility A global leader in peristaltic and associated fluid path products, Antylia provides bioprocessing solutions, and a diverse portfolio of life sciences and diagnostic products for the pharma, biopharma, healthcare, and environmental markets. The company has announced the creation of approximately 60 roles in Co. Westmeath with the establishment of its Masterflex® Bioprocessing facility in the National Science Park, Mullingar.

Me dal l i a Expand s i nto I reland with Sales Hub for E M EA Medallia, Inc. recently announced it is expanding to Ireland where the company will open a new mid-market sales and support hub. The company’s award-winning SaaS platform and proprietary AI technology utilise personalised and predictive insights that drive business action to reduce churn, turn detractors into buyers and create cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Initial roles are remote and will include multilingual sales for the French, Spanish, Italian, DACH, Nordics, Benelux and Middle East regions. IDA CEO Martin Shanahan said: “Medallia’s decision to select Ireland as the location of its EMEA hub is a strong vote of confidence in the availability of highly skilled and talented people right across the country.

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POSITIONING Te c h n o l o g y

LO C AT I O N , LO C AT I O N ,

Location I R E L A N D I S A N I S L A N D AT T H E C E N T R E O F T H E W O R L D . C O N S I D E R T H AT S TAT E M E N T F O R A M O M E N T A N D I T M I G H T S O U N D L I K E H U B R I S . LO O K AT T H E R O S T E R O F T H E W O R L D ’ S TO P T EC H N O LO GY C O M PA N I ES T H AT H AV E A S C A L E D B A S E I N I R E L A N D H O W E V E R , A N D O N E C A N S E E H O W T H E C O U N T RY C A N C L A I M TO B E O N E O F T H E W O R L D ’ S F O R E M O S T T EC H N O LO GY LO C AT I O N S .

BY DÓNAL TRAVERS

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Some of Ireland’s longest established technology investors, like IBM and Ericsson for example, both with a presence in Ireland for over 60 years, continue to locate some of their most current and strategic initiatives in Ireland, such as AI, cloud and 5G development. To look at how Ireland has remained as a leading location for the world’s foremost technology locations, picking up the story in the 1980s is a good place to start.

Early 1980s Ireland might not have been the most exciting destination. What the country did have though was a young, rapidly growing, and really well-educated population, many of whom emigrated to find a job and build a career outside Ireland.

It was this talent base that persuaded companies like Apple and Dell EMC to

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POSITIONING Te c h n o l o g y

initially locate assembly type operations in Ireland, and when Microsoft and Intel arrived in 1985 and 1989 respectively, Ireland had become a location that any company looking at international expansion just had to consider.

Fast forward to today and Ireland has ridden several technology waves, from the original thin client era, through the advance of the personal computer and back full circle to the era that is now dominated by the cloud. The one constant in all of this has been the staying power of the world’s leading tech brands in Ireland.

Intel, which IDA Ireland courted for several years before it finally decided to invest in its first wafer fab outside North America in 1989, recently announced its next wave of manufacturing investment in Ireland, at the 7 nanometer technology node, taking its total investment in Ireland to date to $22 billion, over a 32-year period.

Microsoft has relied on Ireland for over 35 years to run its international operations. It recently announced the addition of critical cloud workflow and identity engineering activities, as well as the growth of its EMEA

digital sales organisation. It too has been a serial investor in cloud computing assets, with its Azure platform firmly rooted in Dublin.

The story is not just about Dublin though.

Ericsson, in Ireland since the late 1950s, depends on its site in Athlone, in Ireland’s Midlands, for the development and maintenance of its critical OSS architecture.

Working in partnership with the local Athlone Institute of Technology for the development of bespoke talent, the site is one of the largest employers of java software skills in Ireland.

And as the world of enterprise technology has evolved to a subscription model, SAP, Microsoft and Oracle have used their Irish operations to support their move to Software as a Service (SaaS), building teams here to support technology transformation, critical infrastructure and site reliability, and digital sales. Those companies that were born in the cloud, like Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow and more recently Diligent, use Ireland to scale international centres for engineering, sales, support and global business services.

Why has Ireland remained such a consistently short-listed location when the world’s leading companies are considering their next international expansion? The answer is multifaceted, and while factors such as the country’s strategic position between North America and Europe, its young English speaking workforce, Eurozone membership and consistent government enterprise policies are all important, the ability of companies to find the right talent, quickly and at scale, trumps everything else.

Another factor has emerged over the last 10 to 15 years that denotes the transition of Ireland to a mature tech base that combines the best of domestic innovation, funding from public and private sources, a rich research environment, and the world’s

“Fast forward to today and Ireland has ridden several technology waves, from the original thin client era, through the advance of the personal computer and back full circle to the era that is now dominated by the cloud.”

best-known companies. IDA Ireland’s sister agency, Enterprise Ireland, which is responsible for the support and international growth of Irish companies, is now Europe’s largest seed investor, based on the number of investments it makes. This has led to a rich environment with a deep talent pool where Irish companies are emerging in key technology domains.

This means that Ireland now supports in excess of 2,000 start-ups across all major technology domains. In the last year, companies like Manna (last-mile drone delivery), Evervault (data encryption) and Soapbox Labs (Voice AI) are just three examples of innovative Irish companies that have raised funding rounds. In addition to partnering with Irish tech, overseas companies are active acquirers, including in recent years, Apple, Google, Verizon, Facebook, Bloomberg, IBM, Genesys, Workday and just this year, Qorvo, which acquired Decawave to support the development of its ultra-wideband capability with applications across a range of consumer and industrial applications.

So, while other countries can also claim to have great incentives, well-developed sources of funding, competitive taxation policies, world-leading tech brands, great talent and even good weather, Ireland brings something else that no other country can lay claim to. Through the experience of working with the world’s top technology companies, IDA consistently hears about the fail-safe ability to launch and drive strategic global initiatives that require resourcefulness, agility, innovation and a can-do attitude that ensures success.

And now, as we enter a new and somewhat uncertain era in a post-Covid and post-Brexit environment, that reliability and predictability will be more valuable than ever.

This new era brings additional challenges as companies seek to navigate increased sustainability requirements and new hybrid office environments. IDA’s clients are navigating those challenges in a supportive and collaborative way in Ireland. These are the ingredients that will ensure that Ireland will remain an island at the centre of the world.

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POSITIONING Brexit Expansion

S T R ON G

Links M O R E T H A N 1 0 0 F I N A N C I A L S E R V I C ES F I R M S H AV E ES TA B L I S H E D O R E X PA N D E D I N D U B L I N . K I E R A N D O N O G H U E , G LO B A L H E A D O F S T R AT EGY A N D F I N A N C I A L S E R V I C ES AT I R E L A N D ’ S I N WA R D I N V ES T M E N T AG E N C – I DA I R E L A N D – S AYS T H E R E A R E M Y R I A D R E A S O N S F O R T H I S , B U T W H AT H E H A S G L E A N E D I S T H AT P O S TB R E X I T, F I N A N C I A L F I R M S A R E E X EC U T I N G A M U LT I - LO C AT I O N A L S T R AT EGY N O W T H AT LO N D O N I S O U TS I D E T H E EU . H O W E V E R , I T R E M A I N S I M P O R TA N T T H AT LO N D O N V E RY M U C H S T I L L H A S A ‘ F R I E N D ’ I N EU R O P E .

Ireland, specifically Dublin, is well positioned in terms of attracting financial services businesses from the UK. Attractions include geographic and cultural proximity, language and law, financial regulation and supervision to EU and global standards, deep domain knowledge, close ties with the UK financial sector, the ‘liveability’ of Dublin itself, and its role as an established and diversified financial centre especially for investment funds, banking, insurance and financial technology.

London will remain a major global financial centre, as Kieran explains. However, as time passes, and more emphasis is placed on establishing trade agreements with Asia and emerging markets, the UK will still need a friend in Europe.

“Ireland has longstanding and close ties to the UK, going well beyond a common time zone, language and legal system,” he says. “With a diverse and experienced talent 8

pool, a common travel area with the UK, a voice in European policy and regulatory fora, plus a substantial financial services industry comprising the leading international banks, insurers, asset managers and fintechs, Ireland is well-placed to support UK-based firms as they prepare for a postBrexit world.” And in terms of what this looks like, the numbers speak for themselves.

“We’ve been speaking to international financial services groups since 2016 and over the last five years or so, more than 100 financial services firms have either established in or substantially expanded their presence in Dublin,” Kieran says.

“Clearly, their assessment of Brexit reinforced the importance of preserving access to the EU market, of maintaining relationships with existing clients while positioning for future opportunities and, therefore, they selected Dublin on this basis.”

“One of Ireland’s attractions is the presence of more than 300 foreign-owned financial institutions employing more than 40,000 people,” Kieran continues. “These firms operate in several sectors including banking and payments, insurance / reinsurance, funds and asset management, aircraft leasing and financial technology.

They undertake a diverse range of front, middle and back office activities and have significantly expanded their presence in Ireland post-Brexit.”

“A recent report entitled ‘Brexit & the City: The Impact So Far’ by New Financial has identified Dublin as the financial centre that has experienced the largest influx of financial services companies in

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response to Brexit and we have an increasing number of systemically important institutions such as Barclays, Bank of America, and Citigroup running their Pan-European banking businesses out of Dublin – it’s quite diverse in terms of the nature, scale and complexity of the institutions that are establishing here.”

Even with the substantial focus on Irish shores, Kieran says given the complexity of the markets that they’re servicing, along with the distribution of their customers, a multi-locational model is the appropriate response to Brexit. “In practice, what we’ve seen is a significant number of groups establishing a presence in Dublin, but also Luxembourg, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam. The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) all but ignored financial services and I think that sends a very strong message in itself, which is that if you want to maintain access to the EU market and to your customers in Europe, you need to be in Europe.”

However, it isn’t just about location – having access to the talent and skills essential to ensure the industry continues to thrive is also paramount.

“Naturally, with respect to financial services, access to a young, highly-

“UK-based financial services firms should see an EU presence as an opportunity to increase market diversification and competitiveness, and to supplement the local, top-quality expertise on offer in Britain. And here in Ireland, the industry can also source skilled and experienced staff both locally and from across the EU. A fast-track visa programme also exists to onboard staff hired globally, for instance from the US.”

educated and skilled workforce is pivotal.

For the industry, innovation is key and high calibre talent is necessary to drive success.

Therefore, the chosen EU hub must have a talent pool consisting of people with the required skills and experience – in quantity and quality – for the sector to continue to flourish,” he continues.

“UK-based financial services firms should see an EU presence as an opportunity to increase market diversification and competitiveness, and to supplement the local, top-quality expertise on offer in Britain. And here in Ireland, the industry can also source skilled and experienced staff both locally and from across the EU. A fast-track visa programme also exists to onboard staff hired globally, for instance from the US.” Meanwhile, the Irish government is keen to show their strong pro-business trackrecord. According to Forbes, Ireland is one of the best countries in the world for ease of doing business, having already attracted some of the world’s leading financial services firms including JP Morgan, BNY Mellon, BlackRock, Amundi, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Zurich, Mastercard, Stripe and many more.

Ireland’s attractiveness is not confined to the financial sector, either. “Many other industries from manufacturing e.g. biopharmaceuticals, to technology (software development) and other services sectors such as digital media and IT / business services already have a very strong presence in Ireland and have elected to expand further in anticipation of the challenges triggered by the UK exit.”

In terms of where this leaves us now, five years after Brexit, Kieran says the next step is to ensure business can move onwards and upwards post-relocation.

“The vast majority and the biggest relocations took place within two years of the UK referendum. Brexit business is still coming through but not to the same levels as 2016-2018 – it has certainly peaked,” he says. “We don’t expect a substantial second wave [of relocations]; the bigger question now is how companies that established or expanded in Ireland in response to Brexit scale their investment.”

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hold fast

When I took up my role in 2005, PennEngineering was a very different company to what it is today. We had a staff of 80. My role was to raise the value of this site to a full service one for the European market, and become the European headquarters of PennEngineering. With the support of the board, I began implementing strategic changes, creating a move

A GLOBAL LEADER IN FASTENING TECHNOLOGIES SINCE IT WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1942, PENNENGINEERING O P E N E D I TS G A LWAY FA C I L I T Y I N 2 0 0 1 . T W E N T Y Y E A R S O N , T H E I R I S H O P E R AT I O N I S L E A D I N G T H E WAY W H E N I T C O M ES TO I N N O VAT I O N A N D T R A I N I N G A N D I TS P R ES I D E N T, M A RY A N N F L E M I N G F E R G U S , S AYS I TS G R E AT ES T S T R E N GT H I S I TS P EO P L E .

BY M E G W A L K E R

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INTERVIEW Hold Fast

TWENTY YEARS IN IRELAND, 75 YEARS IN BUSINESS – THE PENNENGINEERING STORY CAN BE SEEN AS A METAPHOR FOR A GENERATION. ESTABLISHED IN THE WAR YEARS , THE COMPANY HAS EMBRACED EXPANSION, DIVERSIFICATION AND INNOVATION. THIS ETHOS AND G LO B A L O U T LO O K C O N T R I B U T E TO I TS O N G O I N G SUCCESS .

“up the value chain” by adding R&D, sales, supply chain, warehouse, applications engineering, heat treatment and plating to the business. This structural reengineering secured the longevity of the business in Ireland and laid the foundations for sustainable long-term growth. This pivotal point in PEM Galway’s history led to significant investment by the board, who invested millions of euros in capital equipment, buildings and people.

The workforce has grown from 80 people in 2001 to over 200 today. We have full responsibility for our P&L, decision making, and growth here locally and also have 11 salespeople across Europe, and five service engineers. We sell 90% of our product to our distribution partners spread across all 27 EU countries.

Our manufacturing plant operates on a continuous improvement environment. We have an amazing, talented team in Europe and take pride in our focus on training and development. We developed a diploma in Engineering college course with our local training agency in Galway, specifically for operators, which is now being used by other companies across Ireland. Our next step in this business improvement journey is to adopt an Industry 4.0 strategy, so we’re able to compete further. We started the groundwork for this move over a year ago, and to continue on that journey, we have to grow the talents of our team, taking a team that was hired over the last 30-40 years into what was a mechanical engineering business into a business that’s going to support the customers and markets of the future.

We want to grow this business to a level that it makes us a strong contender in our marketplace.

We want to increase sales in the next number of years by 100%. In order to achieve this, it is necessary for us to adopt Industry 4.0 as one of our principal manufacturing strategies and continue to develop our Lean programmes and become a Lean leader in our organisation. We have to continue to be innovative in our R&D teams and our applications engineering teams with value-add responses to customers for both fasteners and installation systems.

We will also continue to invest in our people – 30% of our workforce are in training and development, and we want

Mary Ann Fleming Fergus

Sherif Seddik

to grow that too. We have six people completing a master’s in Lean Management Systems in University of Limerick and five more completing Mechatronics courses in GMIT, AIT, and IT Sligo. Our operators are continuing to complete level 6 and 7 engineering courses to prepare them for our future needs. From a capital point of view, we’ll continue to invest and support that growth as well, which means $2-3 million per year invested in Galway by our owners. As a business, we must continue to innovate and improve in order to survive.

We do face challenges on a day to day basis. We like to turn our challenges into opportunities for success. One challenge is staying ahead of our customer needs, so we introduce new products to early adopter customers before releases for optimum success.

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INTERVIEW Hold Fast

“Our people are our strength. They deliver a level of excellence in quality and service to our customers; we have a “can do” attitude and we strive to continuously improve across all departments.”

and the values of the company to all team members. I constantly communicate the values of the business: customer focussed, innovative, respect, collaboration, and integrity. Everybody has a role to play, and that role is extremely important.

It doesn’t matter if you are the last person in the door or the more senior executive – everybody has an important role, and that role makes the business a success.

One of our biggest challenges is competitor copycat products. PennEngineering is the innovator, inventor, and design leader for self-clinching fasteners, but our competitors copy the volume end of our catalogue product and sell it at a much cheaper price and lower quality. We are the market leader; we have a full support site here in Galway that can help our customers in Europe – we cannot do this level of innovation and customer service cheaply. So, the challenge is to win market share against those competitors by working with customers so they can see our value. We have great success in many markets, especially the automotive market, in designing new products and sustaining print position but this requires full commitment to R&D for long-term success.

Virtual is great, but there is nothing like meeting people face to face.

Particularly in our business, where we are trying to convince a customer of a new innovation or explaining the highly technical results of our testing and proving how it will work in the customer’s application. It is much easier if you can touch and feel that and see how genuine the offering is. Managing teams remotely 12

is challenging. People trust you more when they see you. But I do think we have learned a lot this past year and we’ll be more careful with our time going forward and smarter about business travel.

Our people are key to our success.

One of the most important things to have if you want to work here is a desire to learn and improve. We’re ever-evolving, so we hire people that fit that criteria – an interest in continuous improvement, a willingness to learn, ambition, and an ability to be open, flexible and agile. We’re looking for people who want a secure a job – our length of service is quite strong.

We also want people that bring innovation and knowledge to the company. Everything we do here we do as a team. We do a huge amount of internal training. And the key is to have opportunities for them to move into. That is why growth is so important.

The keys to leading a large, global team are… Number one, you must trust your team. Number two, you must delegate. And number three is key – constant communication is essential, as is instilling the values of myself as the leader

What makes Ireland a unique place to do business is its people. In Galway, we are leading the way in so many innovations within PennEngineering, and that’s because of our people. Our people are our strength. They deliver a level of excellence in quality and service to our customers; we have a “can do” attitude and we strive to continuously improve across all departments. This has led us to achieve the results which will sustain our business and people’s jobs into the future. We have NUIG in Galway, GMIT, and lots of supporting colleges around us, so our ability to hire people is fantastic. That is one of the real difficulties they have in some of the other sites – attracting people into this industry. People want to work here. That is why there’s never a hesitation about the investment by our corporate team – they know we run a profitable business that can hire great people. Being close to the market in Europe and being part of the EU is important. The other things – like corporate tax – are really minor in our world. Openness to the market, flexibility, and what our people can do is key.

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PROFILE The Leader

The Leader Elaine Murphy S E N I O R V I C E P R E S I D E N T, LIVETILES EMEA OPERATIONS

AT A GLANCE

We sp eak to E la in e Mu r p h y o n th e imp o r tan ce o f c h a mp io n in g Sl ig o an d th e No r th West, wo r k in g with th e commu n ity a n d h ow hir in g as mu ch for a ttitu d e a s for ex p e r ie n c e can le a d to g r eate r bu sin ess su ccess.

Supporting remote working teams during Covid has been challenging.

How are Irish companies adapting?

Overall, there seems to have been a very swift adjustment and solutions-oriented attitude right across Irish business and industry. What’s important now is to learn from it and consolidate the gains as part of workplace culture moving forward.

Water-cooler moments have always been part of team culture. How do you feel these moments can be simulated when remote working?

This is very much what we focus on in LiveTiles and it is essentially getting the blend of ‘people and tech’ right. Ensuring that your digital workplace tech unites your workforce, including everyone no matter where they are or what device they are on, or what their role is, is critical. Underpinning this with an organisational culture that empowers the employee voice and uses workplace tech for social connections as well as business purposes is also important.

How do you keep Ireland front and centre within a global organisation?

Our people and our ability to galvanise around shared values from day one in Ireland has set us up for success. Ireland has a rich and diverse talent pool of world-class expertise, which I showcased to our executive leadership team. I champion the team consistently. Showing that we can attract top talent to lead European and global functions in areas such as finance, communications, marketing and sales, meant we secured the opportunity to diversify the plan for the Irish location from Software Development to position ourselves as a European hub.

62% OF EXECUTIVES AGREE THAT VIDEO CONFERENCING SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVES THE QUALITY OF COMMUNICATION

115 million 78%

DAILY ACTIVE USERS ON MICROSOFT TEAMS

OF COMPANIES STRONGLY AGREE THAT “TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE FUTURE, OUR ORGANISATION MUST CONNECT AND EMPOWER ITS FRONTLINE WORKERS WITH TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION”

How important is it to extend the concept of ‘team’ beyond the company walls and into the community at large?

It’s a game changer, a differentiating factor that we should be marketing on the international stage. LiveTiles would not be in Ireland today if the IDA, IT Sligo, the local and American Chamber of Commerce, members of the Tech North West and many others in the business community in the North West and across Ireland had not come together to provide guidance, support and show a first rate and ongoing céad míle fáilte to our founders. We take pride in sharing our knowledge with the local community, speaking at, and running educational events and sponsoring teams, using our collective skills to make our community a place to thrive and succeed, reflective of our company culture.

What qualities signal the X-factor for you when interviewing?

I invest a significant amount of time in hiring. I personally interview everyone, and hire talent that has a ‘can-do’ attitude, that’s

resilient, agile and comfortable with change management. For me, the X-factors are showing imagination, curiosity and highlighting that you can approach a situation with a positive mental outlook, while understanding the risks. I look to see if people have the capacity to assess problems or opportunities in a fresh manner.

What do you see as being the next exciting challenge for LiveTiles?

At LiveTiles, we have a long-term vision of building an Employee Experience platform that is very much on track and has even been accelerated by what we have all lived through over the last 12 months or more.

The challenge is to learn from the real-world experiment that has been forced upon us

by Covid-19 and use this to build the world’s most effective platform that takes out the tech complexity and replaces it with incredible experiences that enhance and simplify connections in the workplace: connections between employer and employee, between colleagues, between organisational entities, and between people and their work. We are passionate about tech-for-good and are proud to be official sponsors of the UN’s AI for Good global initiative that aims to spread the benefits of advances in AI for some of the world’s biggest challenges from health and poverty to innovation and the future of work.

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GROWTH Expansion

JENNIFER McSHANE speaks to Trevor Fox, Vice President of Finance and Ireland Site Lead at HID Global, and Maeve Culloty, Managing Director at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), two leaders looking for new ground and ways to innovate in the midst of a pandemic storm.

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GROWTH Expansion

F O R M A N Y M U LT I N AT I O N A L C O M PA N I ES I N I R E L A N D , E X PA N S I O N H A S B E E N A K E Y E L E M E N T O N T H E I R AG E N DA F O R 2 0 2 0 – C O V I D - 1 9 O R N OT. Q U I T E A F E W A R E A L S O P L A N N I N G E X PA N S I O N S F O R 2 0 2 1 A N D B E YO N D . I N W H AT H A S B E E N T H E M O S T T ES T I N G A N D T RY I N G 1 6 M O N T H S F O R B U S I N ES S ES A R O U N D T H E G LO B , T H E PA N D E M I C H A S F O R C E D C O M PA N I ES TO P I V OT A N D C H A N G E T H E I R B U S I N ES S M O D E L S I N WAYS T H AT W O U L D H AV E B E E N U N P R EC E D E N T E D O V E R A Y E A R AG O . A S E L ECT I O N O F K E Y M U LT I N AT I O N A L C O M PA N I ES H AV E F O R G E D A H E A D W I T H E X PA N S I O N P L A N S I N C LU D I N G I N T E L A N D M I C R O C H I P, A S W E L L A S H I D G LO B A L A N D H P E I R E L A N D .

HID GLOBAL Starting with HID Global, known as a worldwide leader in the production of identity products from citizen identification and beyond. It was early this year they announced they were on track to open their Centre of Excellence in Galway city in 2021 (the company was first established in Ireland in Galway in 2006) – a natural progression for the company headquartered in Austin, Texas, with over 4,000 employees worldwide and international offices supporting more than 100 countries.

“We had announced we were doing this, and ideally, we would have liked a pandemic not to have happened if we were to rewrite the script again, because it obviously brought challenges with it. But that also allowed people to flourish as well, in terms of having people that wouldn’t have always been the strongest within the team really step up and say, ‘wait, we can get this done,’” explains Trevor Fox of HID Global.

In terms of their new Centre of Excellence, Trevor says it stands out amongst its competitors, thanks to some of its unique features. “What we bring is a full picture of everything under the one roof. So the whole building spans from our manufacturing and operations, those who actually make our physical product to our R&D developers who design the software for those products,

to all the support services that are around that from finance to HR, all in the same place, with when launched, just 300 people.

We have 180 at the moment.”

He highlights the company’s Irishness – many employees speak Irish fluently – combined with their multicultural staff as a facet of the company which stands out.

“I also think our product offering is unique; a micro-type company that has every facet of a functional box ticked within a relatively small team.” Ireland’s HID office is in the top three of all the global centres.

He says trust, agility and communication is what has made HID Global thrive where many might have found themselves floundering. “You need to have trust in the people that are around you. Because you can’t do it all yourself. But you really need

to make sure that as you build teams, you build a team for anything that might come up – even during a pandemic. And with this, there’s no expert on this, so it levels everybody. I think that’s when you get the most out of people. And it’s so important to always have a great team around you; I’ve always hired people more intelligent than me, and will continue to do so.

You have to be resilient and adaptable – over the last year, we’ve hired over 60 people remotely who we’ve never met face-to-face.”

“We also communicated. What helped us flourish was communication with our teams around the world; it was a tiered approach with constant new learnings and sharing our ideas to ensure we could come out the other side as a global company.”

Trevor Fox “You really need to make sure that as you build teams, you build a team for anything that might come up – even during a pandemic. And with this, there’s no expert on this, so it levels everybody.”

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GROWTH Expansion

Maeve Culloty “We were lucky in that as a technology company, it was becoming very apparent the way out of Covid for many companies is digitisation and their digital strategy. So HPE has actually done quite well in terms of helping customers to transform and to help them with their digital transformation,”

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE (HPE) Next, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), a global edge-to-cloud platform as-a-service company, which celebrates 50 years in Ireland this year, announced its plans to recruit 150 experienced technologists in Ireland over the next two years with jobs in R&D, cyber security, software development and cloud consulting.

The company has also named Galway as its European hub for cyber security operations and they will be establishing a new Hybrid Cloud Practice, an element Maeve Culloty, Managing Director of HPE says will be critical when it comes to helping Irish customers accelerate their digital transformation as their new normal continues to evolve.

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The company, Maeve says, has always been one to pivot as its needs – and those of its customers – demanded and the pandemic has been no different.

“We were lucky in that as a technology company, it was becoming very apparent the way out of Covid for many companies is digitisation and their digital strategy.

So HPE has actually done quite well in terms of helping customers to transform and to help them with their digital transformation,” she says. “That same sentiment goes from a worldwide perspective, and in the last two years, we’ve really worked to ensure that from a global perspective, we continue to be relevant. We really focused on high

capability, high complexity work that requires a highly capable workforce. And that’s what Ireland can deliver on. In 2013, we started the cyber security practice out of Galway. We’ve been developing that ever since and been able to expand what that team is doing out of Galway, across Europe. So it’s focusing on those key areas of where the strategy of the business is going. And making sure that we’ve got a workforce that can follow through and deliver against that.”

She explains along with their customer buying behaviour changing and accelerating, HPE too had to change to meet those demands. This is what, she feels, has made the company excel where others may not have.

“One of the things that we help our customers with is to build a technology platform that enables their data and apps to live. Now, they’re just looking for access to what that technology can do – they are saying, ‘Just give me access to the technology. And I’ll either run it myself or have HPE run it for me.’ In this way, change is at the heart of what HPE does. As a brand, we’re constantly changing and providing the roadmap for the future.”

“So that means our team, and our people have to move with that pace. And when it comes to digitisation, and the Technology Roadmap that’s going to get us out of this, it’s very much part of the HPE DNA to be able to accommodate that and go with that change. We’ve had to understand our own teams, as well as being able to solve the customer’s problem; how do we solve this internally from a physical and mental health perspective?”

As to why some companies haven’t or refused to do this during the pandemic, she explains each company needs an energy, a motivation to be able to do that transition. “And if motivation isn’t big enough, the change doesn’t happen.”

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GROWTH Decentralisation

DIVIDE

conquer T H R I V I N G M U LT I N AT I O N A L S O P E R AT I N G I N I R E L A N D A R E O F T E N E N C O U R AG E D BY T H E I DA TO O P E N A S EC O N D S AT E L L I T E O P E R AT I O N , P R E F E R A B LY O U TS I D E D U B L I N TO S T I M U L AT E J O B S A N D TA K E A D VA N TAG E O F N E W

DENISE MAGUIRE asks three global firms what they see as the benefits to having multiple sites around Ireland.

TA L E N T P O O L S . I T ’ S A P O L I CY T H AT H A S H E L P E D B R E AT H E N E W L I F E I N TO TO W N S A N D C I T I ES A C R O S S T H E M I D L A N D S A N D W ES T A N D H A S I N T U R N A L LO W E D G LO B A L F I R M S TO G R O W A N D D E V E LO P.

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GROWTH Decentralisation

Operating in Ireland since 1997, SAP began its journey as a 30-strong company in East Point Business Park, Dublin. Today, SAP has three office locations in Dublin and Galway and employs up to 1,200 people. The decision to open a facility in Galway was fuelled by the company’s rapid expansion. A new multilingual support team was required and Galway was deemed the most advantageous location. “We interacted with the IDA who encouraged us to investigate areas outside Dublin. Galway had the critical mass with options to grow and hire and it also had a large multilingual community,” says Liam Ryan, Managing Director, SAP Labs Ireland. A thriving university infrastructure was also a major factor when it came to choosing Galway as a second site. “You had GMIT as it was called at the time and UL which was the only university back then that offered a whole degree programme in technical communication. To this day, we have really strong links with UL that benefit both the students and us,” says Rachael Hewetson, User Assistance Development Manager at SAP. A major advantage of having an additional site in Galway is the new talent pool it has opened up to the company. “It has also given employees a choice. We had several members of staff based in Dublin who were from the West. With the Galway site, we were able to retain those staff that wanted to relocate back home. It’s another reason why employees should continue to work with SAP as they have that choice of location,” says Liam.

Established in Galway in 1994, Boston Scientific has become synonymous with Ireland. With three locations across the country (Galway, Clonmel and Cork), the company exports approximately 10 million medical devices worldwide annually including stents, balloons, platinum coils, catheters, inflation devices, pacemakers and ICDs. A large cohort of people studying 18

similar disciplines and working in similar areas is something the company has leveraged over the years, says Sean Gayer, VP Operations in Cork. “The three locations are served very well educationally and that obviously helps us. All of the educational facilities in the area collaborate with us to ensure they’re offering their students the right type of courses so they’re better placed to work with us in the future.”

For a US company locating in Ireland, integration into local communities is crucial.

“Over the past 10 years, our charity endeavours in Cork alone have raised over half a million euro. Our staff are also heavily involved in volunteering, which is just as important as funds raised. Some of the ideas from our charity team have been really innovative. A few years ago, they asked if they could raffle off the two parking spots nearest the employee entrance. You had 1,000 people that really wanted those two spaces! I thought it was brilliant in its simplicity,” says Sean at Boston Scientific.

The company is also one of the key sponsors of the College of Medicine and Health interdisciplinary Seed Awards at UCC and all three sites work with local schools to encourage children to get involved in STEM.

Sean Gayer, VP Operations, Boston Scientific, Cork

Liam Ryan, Managing Director SAP Labs Ireland

A much-improved road network and proximity to regional airports have helped make Ireland an attractive location for multinationals. With remote working looking like it’s here to stay for many companies, connectivity has never been more important.

“We still have a bit of work to do in terms of broadband in certain areas, but I think our mindset of connectivity is perhaps even more important and I think that has improved hugely since the pandemic hit. We have four employee resource groups that work across the three sites and in terms of keeping us connected and promoting diversity and inclusivity, they’ve never been more important,” says Sean at Boston Scientific.

In 1996, Fidelity Investments, the Boston headquartered financial services company, chose Dublin as its first global

“We have four employee resource groups that work across the three sites and in terms of keeping us connected and promoting diversity and inclusivity, they’ve never been more important.”

Sean Gayer, VP Operations, Boston Scientific

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GROWTH Decentralisation

Penny Bryant, Director of Penny Bryant, Director of Communications and Communications and CSR at Fidelity CSR at Fidelity

Yvonne McArdle, HR Director at SAP

“It has also given employees a choice. We had several members of staff based in Dublin who were from the West. With the Galway site, we were able to retain those staff that wanted to relocate back home.”

Liam Ryan, Managing Director, SAP Labs Ireland

location. A site in Galway followed, opening up a whole new talent pool for the company.

“Having hubs in Galway and Dublin has allowed us to offer roles on either side of the country and it has also given us access to a much broader talent pool. On the practical side, it’s only two hours between Dublin and Galway so it’s easy to stay connected,” says Penny Bryant, Director of Communications and CSR at Fidelity.

Employing approximately 1,300 people in Ireland across its two sites, Fidelity has made a concerted effort to ensure there’s no trade-off between rural and regional locations. “As a leading fintech, we have the technology to facilitate that. Video conferencing has always been a way for us to connect and with everyone working from home now, I think in some ways we feel more connected than ever.” The company has also worked hard on its CSR strategy to ensure it reflects the company’s core values. “Part of that was ramping up our community work around education and employment readiness. Covid has forced

us to adapt the ways in which we service our community and our staff have been fantastic in helping us innovate and digitise online. We’ve also provided refurbished laptops to local schools in Galway and Dublin to help kids study from home.”

Integration into local communities across both sites has also been a priority at SAP. “We hold various fundraising events throughout the year and we also organise a number of volunteering events to help our chosen charities. During Code Week, our employees visit local primary and secondary schools to teach coding from scratch. It’s a great way to get involved in the local schools and make them aware of SAP. We return each year so we’re teaching the same kids in the next class so they’re continually learning,” says Yvonne McArdle, HR Director at SAP Ireland.

Through their multiple sites Fidelity, SAP and Boston Scientific have cemented their positions across the country and have shown the rest of the world that Ireland is a great place to do business. By extending

their reach across the country, the three global firms have strengthened their brands and will, undoubtedly, continue to do so over the coming years.

Right now, wellbeing in the workplace is a hot topic but at Fidelity, it’s taken very seriously. “We have a motto here – find your fidelity – which is all about finding the greater meaning in your job and figuring out how it improves the lives of others.

Wellbeing may have different meanings for different people and at Fidelity, we offer a range of benefits from financial to health to community. It’s also not just about what we offer as a package but the benefits of working for a company that has a strong focus on inclusivity and community.”

Throughout the pandemic, associates have been given time off to cope with the added pressures of life during Covid. At SAP, a culture of inclusion and a focus on health and wellbeing is helping to ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can operate at their best.

“We’re very active when it comes to promoting diversity, inclusion and social justice. A good example is our Autism at Work programme, where we hire people from the autistic spectrum. For some autistic people, noise might be an issue so eating lunch in the canteen mightn’t be an option.

We ensure quiet meeting rooms are provided for those who want them,” says Yvonne McArdle, HR Director at SAP Ireland.

“Having hubs in Galway and Dublin has allowed us to offer roles on either side of the country and it has also given us access to a much broader talent pool. On the practical side, it’s only two hours between Dublin and Galway so it’s easy to stay connected,” Penny Bryant, Director of Communications and CSR at Fidelity

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INTO THE

WEST 20

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INTO THE WEST

T W H AT M A K ES T H E

W ES T O F I R E L A N D

The West of Ireland is buzzing with international companies, start-ups and micro enterprises that have recognised the area as a great place to do business. With so many multinationals across the IT, medtech and fintech industries dotted around the region, it has become a hub of innovation and an attractive geographical proposition for graduates looking to start or advance their career. Multinationals like to base themselves in bustling areas and develop alongside other multinationals; they thrive off each other and the West of Ireland has proved an ideal region for companies to accelerate that growth. It’s also a region

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Zimmer Biomet

that has become internationally recognised for its research excellence. Both NUIG and GMIT collaborate closely with industry and boast successful research centres, such as the Insight Centre for Data Analytics. Indeed, both are renowned as expert research-led institutions. Organisations in the region benefit from several research facilities including The National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science (NCBES) , Regenerative Medicine Institute, Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB), Centre for Chromosome Biology (CCB) and Galway Medical Technologies Centre (GMedTech).

Zimmer Biomet, a global leader in musculoskeletal healthcare, is one such company that has benefitted from basing its Irish facility in the West. With two stateof-the-art manufacturing facilities in Shannon and Oranmore, Galway along with a professional education centre, the company attributes its success in Ireland to its talented employees, a focus on quality and investment in leading edge technology.

Adrian Furey, VP, Global Supply Chain & Logistics at Zimmer Biomet in Ireland, says the region’s talent pool is a major advantage.

Adrian Furey, VP, Global Supply Chain & Logistics at Zimmer Biomet in Ireland

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INTO THE WEST Zimmer Biomet

“I’m from the West so I might be a bit biased but we have a huge access to talent here.

When Zimmer Biomet was choosing its first location in Ireland, a key consideration was ensuring we selected an area that had the right people with the right capabilities.

Ireland in general had a good cluster of medical device companies already in place so we knew we were on the right track. With University of Limerick, GMIT, LIT and NUI Galway, both Shannon and Galway have a tremendous university infrastructure. It’s also easy to get around in terms of commute and we have a lower cost of living. Having the airport close is obviously another big plus.”

Zimmer Biomet is a huge local employer across the two regions. “The medical device factory in Shannon is located in an area where there aren’t many similar facilities so I think in terms of opportunities for graduates in that field, we’re seen as playing a very significant role.” Over 750 people are employed between the two facilities. Over the years, Irish staff have taken up prominent roles in US branches of the company.

“At the moment, a guy originally from Waterford is running one of the New Jersey operations. Being able to export our talent like that is great for Team Ireland. I myself held the role of Vice President of the Americas for two years. it was an incredibly positive experience.”

The company has taken the idea of integration into the local community very seriously. “We do a significant amount of community outreach work with local enterprises and we’re also involved in charity

“When Zimmer Biomet was choosing its first location in Ireland, a key consideration was ensuring we selected an area that had the right people with the right capabilities”.

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INTO THE WEST There’s no shortage of things to see and do in the West of Ireland • Bunratty Castle & Folk Park Take a tour of this iconic fortress, originally a Viking trading camp, and hear stories of battles and bravery.

• Cliffs of Moher Views from the Cliff, rising to a height of 214m and stretching to a length of 14km, don’t disappoint.

• Galway city In the City of the Tribes, enjoy the brightlypainted pubs, street performers and countless festivals.

• Burren National Park – This landscape dominated by rocks, unusual formations, and dramatic cliffs allow for some fascinating walks and hikes • Dingle, Co Kerry – this remote seaside town offers some the most charming local pubs, seafood restaurants and striking scenic drives

organisations too. It’s important that we’re part of the community and do our bit,” says Adrian. The facility at Oranmore runs on a 24-hour shift pattern. “That’s almost unique in orthopaedics. It’s also completely paperless, an attribute that appeals to millennials and helps us to attract top talent.

The Galway facility was paperless from the start and Shannon went paperless in 2015.

It’s a facet of our sustainability ethos that we’re really proud of.” Zimmer Biomet’s young workforce contributes to its positive culture, says Adrian. “Our culture is not about rearview traditional manufacturing. Our aim is to predict what is going to happen on the shop floor rather than reacting to something that has already happened and all our processes support this approach.”

Like all companies, Zimmer Biomet has had to adapt to Covid. “Behaviours that people would have thought impossible at the start of the year were implemented overnight and our team members took responsibility instantly. Once our key managers were educated, we educated everyone on the floor. We showed them that this is how you protect yourselves, your colleagues and family and this is how you protect the factory, thereby protecting our patients. It’s more challenging working this way and we look forward to a time we can put this behind us, but we’ve managed the adjustment well.”

A much-improved road network and proximity to regional airports have helped make the West of Ireland an attractive location for multinationals. With remote working looking like it’s here to stay for many companies, connectivity has never been more important. “Years ago, our road network might have been a liability but now it’s an asset. We couldn’t operate Oranmore and Shannon without the dual carriageway.

When our US visitors come over, we try and get them to Shannon but if we can’t, we’re only a spin from Dublin.”

With floor space still available, Zimmer Biomet has plans to bring in more products into both the Shannon and Oranmore facilities. In addition, the company will invest $10 million in 3D printing as a core technology this year alone. “To facilitate that technology, we will require highly technical staff. We’re proud to be bringing these high level jobs into the West of Ireland. We’re still growing and we feel we have huge potential.

We’re here for the long-term.”

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01/07/2021 15:22

PROFILE The Disruptor

The Disruptor

AT A GLANCE

Nikki Lannen CEO, WARDUCKS

$15.7 trillion ... THE ESTIMATE INCREASE IN GLOBAL GDP (BY 2030) WHICH CAN BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY AI

17% ... THE BOOST ONLINE SHOPPING CAN ACHIEVE WHEN INTRODUCING VR

P r i o r t o e stablis hing WarDucks , a g a m e st u d io bas ed in Dublin, N i k k i L a n n en s erved as a founding m e m b e r o f the Facebook games t e a m w h e r e s he helped the top g a m e s b u si nes s es throughout E M E A sc a l e their bus ines s es .

Outsourcing and intellectual property can be tricky to balance.

Where should the line be drawn?

Keeping the ingredients of your secret sauce secret is obviously important, so it’s a fine balancing act when it comes to bringing in outsourced work or contractors.

You need to be sure to have robust agreements in place governing access to commercially sensitive information. We’ve been fortunate in being able to keep our mission critical work in-house to date.

All ideas start small. What makes some more scalable than others?

Two things make the mobile games sector scalable. Firstly, the existence of a readymade infrastructure that allows us to reach our market directly, i.e. smartphones and tablets.

Secondly, convenience - our product fits around people’s day-to-day lives – you can play a mobile game almost anywhere and at any time. Eliminating any barriers to access your market supports scalability.

How important is an understanding of marketing?

An understanding of marketing is vital, especially in a crowded market like the gaming sector. Building the game is only half of the battle, the other half is scaling the game in a cost-effective, profitable manner. There is so much content and mediums vying for people’s attention today that you need to be surgical in identifying the optimal method of delivery for your marketing. You need to understand your audience, what platforms they are on and how you can reach them. You also need to understand what ad creative will engage them. And this involves constant iteration.

Resourcing is a major cost, particularly staffing. How did you manage your staffing in the early days?

When we started out, I had to be ready to wear a lot of different hats and juggle a lot of different plates. That is still the case but the early days were more challenging in this regard. Identifying and hiring a team who could do the same was the key to keeping everything moving. Not everyone has this flexibility. Hire a team that shares your entrepreneurial traits, particularly in the early stages.

Challenging and testing your own assumptions is important – testing market viability is essential.

What would be your top tip?

Never ascribe to the thinking of “build it and they will come”. Identify who your target market will be, then engage that market and find out what it is they want but aren’t being given by what’s already out there. And then go back again and again throughout the development lifecycle to make sure you’re staying aligned to the needs of the market.

5.5 million ... THE NUMBER OF VR HEADSETS SHIPPED IN 2020

Planning to meet increased demand is important when scaling up. What is the best piece of advice you can give?

I think a clear and established process with your team for communicating bottlenecks and roadblocks down the line and the capacity of existing resources to tackle these is key to getting the scaling process right. Having a solid hiring plan to support that growth is also vital.

Is there any such thing as a bad time for a good idea?

That is quite a broad question. Timings can be really important. Especially on certain platforms such as Virtual Reality platforms.

You could have a great game but launching at the wrong time - it may not get it the downloads it deserves. Also if you’re trying to do something innovative you might want to be ‘first to market’ with that product.

How do you spot a one trick pony?

As mobile games are live products that often need a large team to support their growth such as adding additional game content and live events, many game studios are in fact ‘one trick ponies’ but are very successful in their own right. The revenue a successful mobile game can generate would allow for a very thriving business model and could probably be more described as a ‘one successfully tricked horse’.

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01/07/2021 12:28

RESEARCH D e e p Te c h

The

Seekers In an area strongly associated with IT and Medtech, there is no greater currency than R&D. Deanna O’Connor finds the South West is rich in leading educational institutes and world-renowned research facilities. “ E V E RY W H E R E YO U LO O K , YO U C A N S E E D E E P -T EC H

IN

ACTION,”

S TAT E S

P R O F ES S O R W I L L I A M S C A N LO N , C EO O F T H E T Y N D A L L N AT I O N A L R E S E A R C H INSTITUTE.

“THE

D E E P -T EC H

BEING

D E V E LO P E D AT T Y N DA L L W I L L H AV E A H U G E I M PA CT I N C R E AT I N G S O LU T I O N S F O R H E A LT H A N D W E L L B E I N G , T H E E N E R GY C R I S I S , A G R E E N E R S U S TA I N A B L E S O C I E T Y, S M A R T A G R I C U LT U R E A N D T R A N S P O R T. ” Professor Scanlon sees not only the vision of a future transformed by instant access to all information and near-infinite computing resources, but also a great opportunity for the FDI sector to “more significantly harness the innovative and diverse international talent base located here” and for more multinationals to make Ireland their global R&D hub.

Tyndall is a research flagship of University College Cork and a leading European research centre in integrated ICT (Information and Communications Technology) materials, devices and systems. Tyndall has secured over 110 EU Horizon 2020 awards, totalling over €60m, over the past seven years. “This is a credit to the extraordinary research talent available in Ireland, coupled with the state-of-the-art infrastructure available at Tyndall,” says Professor Scanlon.

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01/07/2021 12:29

RESEARCH D e e p Te c h

Professor William Scanlon, Tyndall National Research Institute

“The deep-tech being developed at Tyndall will have a huge impact in creating solutions for health and wellbeing, the energy crisis, a greener sustainable society, smart agriculture and transport.”

Tyndall aims to double the size and impact of the national ICT research institute and has recently expanded with a new wireless communications laboratory in Dublin hosting a new wireless communications research team who will focus on future deep technologies: Future RF, Future Access, Future Protocols, Future AI, and Future Quantum.

However, it has grown to its current status, home to a research team of over 600 people, from its base in the tech cluster of Cork, collaborating with the wealth of partners on its doorstep. Engagement with industry allows Tyndall to take the results of its research from the lab into society. “We currently engage with over 200 companies (MNCs and SMEs) from across Ireland and internationally and facilitated the launch of a number of high potential spin out companies during the year,” notes Scanlon.

APC MICROBIOME Just a stone’s throw away, APC Microbiome Ireland, a world-leading SFI Research Centre based in UCC and Teagasc, has also been producing exciting spin out companies, including Atlantia Food Clinical Trials, supporting companies to obtain health claims for foods, and Alimentary Health, a global leader in the discovery, development and commercialisation of precision biotics.

Originally founded as the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in 2003, APC Microbiome is home to around 300 researchers investigating the microscopic organisms that live in and on the body, along

three main lines: developing new diagnostics and biomarkers; exploring mechanisms to manipulate the microbiota; and ‘mining’ the microbiota for new drugs and food ingredients. Industry collaborators and partners include companies such as Janssen Biotech (one of the pharmaceutical companies of Johnson & Johnson) and Danone Nutricia.

Professor Paul Ross, Director of APC Microbiome, notes the quality of PhD researchers turned out by the centre is a huge asset to the talent pool in Cork. “APC has trained hundreds of alumni who have advanced to positions in academia, industry and the healthcare sector across the globe.”

Among his own achievements is being honoured in Thomson Reuters ‘The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, 2015’, and his colleagues are of a similar cadre.

Professor Paul Ross, APC Microbiome

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RESEARCH D e e p Te c h

“Ten APC Principal Investigators appear on the Clarivate Analytics 2018 Highly Cited Researchers list of the 1% of scientists who are most highly cited by their peers.”

Professor Ross points out that, “ten APC Principal Investigators appear on the Clarivate Analytics 2018 Highly Cited Researchers list of the 1% of scientists who are most highly cited by their peers.”

The centre is a hive of activity, with APC inventors filing 54 new patent applications, and signing 47 license, assignment and option agreements in the first 15 years of its existence. It has also directly attracted foreign direct investment from 11 companies that would not otherwise have a footprint in Ireland were it not for the APC research.

TEAGASC MOOREPARK The work being done at the APC Microbiome Institute is no doubt underpinned by the rich heritage in food production and food research in the area, and its links with the Teagasc facility at Moorepark. Indeed, Ross was formerly Head of Food Research at Teagasc.

Dr Mark Fenelon, Teagasc

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“The Teagasc Moorepark Animal & Grassland, Research and Innovation Centre has played a pivotal role in the development of the Irish dairy industry,” notes Professor Pat Dillon, Head of the Teagasc Animal & Grassland, Research and Innovation Programme. “Teagasc Moorepark is an internationally known and recognised Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre which produces new leading edge technology and models to drive the Irish agri-food industries.”

As the National Dairy Research Centre, Moorepark is responsible for all aspects of dairy production research. The centre also works closely with the food industry, through client-funded contract research or collaborations, and partnerships with the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) research centres, APC Microbiome Ireland and VistaMilk, Food for Health Ireland and the Dairy Processing and Technology Centre.

Dr Mark Fenelon, Head of the Teagasc Food programme says, “Recent highlights include the Whiskey Terroir project, a collaboration with Waterford Distillery and the MiMIC project, a €6.3 million, four-year project co-funded by Science Foundation Ireland and DuPont Nutrition and Biosciences.”

Professor Pat Dillion,Teagasc

W H AT I S D E E P T E C H Deep technology (deep tech) or hard tech is a classification of organization, or more typically startup company, with the expressed objective of providing technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges.[1] They present challenges requiring lengthy research and development, and large capital investment before successful commercialization. The primary risk in a deep tech or hard tech company is technical risk, while market risk is often overlooked due to the potential value of the solution to society. The underlying scientific or engineering problems being solved by deep tech and hard tech companies generate valuable intellectual property and are hard to reproduce.

The Teagasc Moorepark campus has a range of offerings for the food industry to avail of expert researchers and equipment.

The National Food Innovation Hub, due to open in summer 2021, is an €8.8 million investment from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Dr Fenelon adds, “The concept of the Food Hub is to provide world-class facilities to national and international companies for their research and development teams while its location on the Moorepark campus will allow for collaboration with Teagasc researchers and access to MTL.”

“Teagasc Moorepark is an internationally known and recognised Animal & Grassland Research and Innovation Centre which produces new leading edge technology and models to drive the Irish agrifood industries.”

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PROFILE The Transformer

The Transformer Dr Siobhan Roche DIRECTOR, SCIENCE FOR T H E E C O N O M Y, S C I E N C E FOUNDATION IRELAND

AT A GLANCE

I relan d c a n p osition itse lf a s a wo r ld -lead in g k n o wled g e ec o n o my in key ar eas, su ch as life scien ces, a g r i-fo o d , dig ital tech n olog ies, e n e r g y a n d s ustain ab ility a n d man u fa c tu r in g .

“Companies consistently report access to talented researchers and the opportunity to conduct cutting-edge science and advance technology development as key.”

Tell us a bit about your collaboration with IDA Ireland.

Science Foundation Ireland is Ireland’s national foundation for investment in STEM. SFI collaborates with IDA to deliver our shared mission of supporting economic development. We showcase Ireland’s worldclass research, infrastructure and talent pipeline to clients with a view to increasing FDI and job creation. We develop key connections and support academic researchers to forge R&D partnerships with companies. We established SFI’s first international office in 2018 through placing a scientific staff member in IDA offices in California, a highly successful pilot. SFI has launched the SFI Industry RD&I Fellowship in collaboration with IDA. This programme provides companies with access to highly skilled researchers in Irish academic institutions through direct placements within the company. It’s a great opportunity to bring new scientific expertise into a company to support innovative R&D as well as seed new academic collaborations.

FOR MORE: www.sfi.ie/funding/funding-calls/sfiindustry-fellowship-programme/index.xml

Academia-industry collaborations are becoming more frequent. What results do you see these collabs yielding?

Over 200 industry partnerships have been forged through the Fellowship Programme, in areas including renewable energy, smart manufacturing, and next generation medical devices. A recent survey revealed that 53% of companies participated to address specific skills gaps, while 42% wished to strengthen existing collaborations with an academic partner. Companies consistently report access to talented researchers and the opportunity to conduct cutting edge science and advance technology development as key benefits of the programme. Many Fellowships lead to a longer-term expansion of the R&D partnership and half of Fellows subsequently pursue a career in industry.

Is Ireland in particular fertile ground for collaborations?

Yes, due to the significant investment made by the Irish government in developing Ireland as a world-leading knowledge economy in key areas, such as life sciences, agri-food, digital technologies, energy and sustainability and manufacturing. Much of this research excellence has been consolidated into a network of SFI Research Centres, who engage in pioneering research in partnership with

200

+

INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIPS HAVE BEEN FORGED THROUGH THE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME

53% OF COMPANIES PARTICIPATED TO ADDRESS SPECIFIC SKILLS GAPS

1,000+ CURRENT COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN SFI RESEARCH CENTRES AND COMPANIES

industry. SFI Research Centres have engaged in over 1000 collaborations with companies and are open to new collaborations, including through the Fellowship Programme.

What is the impact of collaboration on the economy/reputation of Ireland?

Over the last decade, the Irish academic research system in Ireland has been transformed into a highly collaborative research ecosystem. There has been significant growth in enterprise collaboration and co-funding of public research. For SFI Research Centres, every €1 invested returns €5 to the Irish economy. Furthermore, Centres have a significant impact on wider job creation.

Additionally, Ireland has increased in global rankings for scientific research quality (12th) and innovation (15th overall, first for knowledge diffusion and impact), an achievement we are very proud of!

What are your medium and long-term goals for SFI? SFI has an ambition for Ireland to become a global innovation leader through further development of our excellent research base and talent and delivering positive benefits for Ireland. We aim to scale and evolve our enterprise facing programmes and invest in emerging areas of science and skills needed to future-proof Ireland’s knowledge economy.

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01/07/2021 12:34

CLEAN

MACHINES T H E E F F ECT H U M A N I T Y I S H AV I N G O N O U R P L A N E T, A N D I N PA R T I C U L A R O N C L E A N

A I R A N D WAT E R , I S U N D E R T H E M I C R O S C O P E AT T H E M O M E N T. W E I N V ES T I G AT E H O W T EC H N O LO GY C A N H E L P A C H I E V E E N V I R O N M E N TA L TA R G E TS .

Deanna O’Connor speaks to Dr Liam O’Faolain and Brendan Sinnott about the important work of cleaning our air and water.

The air we breathe and the water we drink are vital to life on earth and the health of humans, as well as animal and plant life. However, naturally occurring bacteria and human-made pollutants and contaminants can threaten our lives and health when they enter the air supply and the water systems.

Air quality is a major problem in modern cities, but pollutants contaminate air everywhere. Increases in air pollution have been linked to decreases in lung function and increases in heart attacks, most significantly affecting people with asthma and lung or heart disease. The elderly and children are especially vulnerable to the effects of air pollution.

While the modern world - with its industrialisation and increased vehicle usage and international air travel - has negatively impacted air pollution, technological advances have played a part in decreasing the health threats posed by water in many parts of the world, with populations enjoying the

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benefits of access to safe drinking water supplies.

However, clean air and clean water go hand in hand; for example, nitrogen pollution emitted by vehicles and industrial sources is carried by winds, falling across land and water. The harm this causes can be observed where an excess of nitrogen (and phosphorus) in water causes algal blooms, which reduce the amount of oxygen available to fish and other aquatic life.

Clean water is singled out as one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation, and also appears in SDG 14 Life Below Water. While it is not named, air does quite literally infiltrate every aspect of life on earth, but particularly impacts on SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing. It is directly mentioned in two SDG targets: SDG 3.9 (substantial reduction of health impacts from hazardous substances) and SDG 11.6 (reduction of adverse impacts of cities on people).

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SUSTAINABILITY Sanitation

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SUSTAINABILITY Sanitation

SOMETHING IN THE AIR According to a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO), the improvements in air quality due to Covid-19 mobility restrictions during 2020 made it very clear that developing cleaner means of mobility and trade could have a decisively positive impact on pollution. This would have knock-on effects on climate change, sustainable development and future food security.

Sophisticated technology solutions are being developed to work towards greater monitoring and control of pollution. In January of this year, the Cork-based Centre for Advanced Photonics and Process Analysis (CAPPA) launched the EU-funded research project PASSEPARTOUT, which aims to develop low-cost sensors for air quality monitoring in urban areas. Exploiting photo-acoustic and photo-thermal based spectroscopy, the pan-European project, comprising 18 consortium partners across Europe, will create compact photonic sensors to be mounted on buildings, vehicles and drones, for real-time outdoor air pollution monitoring. Direct access to high quality, trustworthy data would feed into a system of air quality alerts, allowing people and businesses to optimise their daily schedules in order to reduce exposure to pollution.

Speaking about the project, Dr Liam O’Faolain, Project Coordinator, states,

Dr Liam O’Faolain

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“One of the major focus points in the water industry is the removal of microplastics and chemicals, both of which are affecting global water supplies.”

Brendan Sinnott

“It demonstrates the inherently crossdisciplinary nature of photonics research, requiring expertise ranging from semiconductor lasers, gas chemistry and spectroscopy, electronics and software, data mining and app development, to drone operations and practical, in-field deployment experience. It is only by working together that we can ensure PASSEPARTOUT has real benefit for society and climate action.”

WATER WORKS Clean, healthy water is essential for our economy, our aquatic wildlife and for our health and wellbeing. According to Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the percentage of groundwater bodies and coastal water bodies in satisfactory quality is well above the European average; overall surface water quality has declined by 4.4% since 2015, mostly driven by the deterioration in river water quality.

“The significant global need for clean water drives investment into sustainable products and processes around wastewater management,” notes Brendan Sinnott, Managing Director, Sulzer Pump Solutions Ireland Ltd. Headquartered in Switzerland, Sulzer is a global leader in fluid engineering, with a site in Co. Wexford dedicated to the design and manufacture of pumps and mixers for wastewater, construction, mining, and commercial markets, complemented by a sales and service centre in Dublin. Sulzer’s

product range includes a full suite of products for the wastewater processing market.

Sinnott continues, “Today, wastewater plants must deal with two to four times more effluent than 50 years ago. Efficient treatment of wastewater and wash water is essential for the cost-effective management of this vital resource as well as the development of a more sustainable environment.”

Another area of great concern, which Sulzer targets, is that of micro-plastics. “One of the major focus points in the water industry is the removal of microplastics and chemicals, both of which are affecting global water supplies. Our modular filtration systems can be tailored to suit specific requirements of both wastewater treatment and water purification plants,” he adds.

Sulzer’s recent acquisition of Nordic Water has further expanded its depth of expertise and offering to the water treatment sector, to widen the availability of solutions for more sustainable water treatment processes.

We can no longer take clean air and water for granted. In global terms water is a scarce commodity, and we are becoming more aware that we must look after our supplies and treat wastewater in the most advanced and sustainable manner possible. With sophisticated research into air quality and the depth of experience of companies with decades of history in water treatment, we are well placed to tackle these challenges.

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PROFILE The Innovator

The Innovator Keith Moran CEO, SL CONTROLS

AT A GLANCE

Sm a r t facto r ie s, on ce th e sole do ma in of car ma n u factu r e r s, ar e n o lo n g e r u n u su a l.

K eith Mo r a n of SL Co n tr ols ta lk s ab o u t th e fu tu r e of au to ma tion .

50 NEW JOBS TO BE CREATED IN THE NEXT 18 MONTHS, BRINGING SL CONTROLS’ WORKFORCE IN IRELAND TO 140

80% INCREASE IN TURNOVER PREDICTED TO €14.5M OVER THE PERIOD 2019 TO 2023

... on opportunites for development We are seeing strong demand in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.

Regulated sectors like these are not as advanced as others for a variety of reasons, but they are catching up fast.

On Research and Development Every production line is different, so R&D is a core part of what we do as we push the boundaries of what is possible. I know the same applies in other parts of our industry too, including machine builders and how they use robots. As for how Ireland does in this area, we certainly punch well above our weight. ...on AI and the IoT Manufacturers need integrated systems and other data-driven solutions first, but once those are in place, a new world of opportunities opens up with technologies like Artificial Intelligence, the Industrial Internet of Things, and cloud-to-edge computing. With these technologies, we are only at the beginning of the journey.

We are particularly focussed on assisting clients in developing and implementing their Industry 4.0 strategies.

... on stable supply chains The global nature of the Covid-19 pandemic is unique, but I think automation and making better use of data will help when supply chains come under strain. We talk about vertical and horizontal integration, where you integrate systems beyond the factory floor within the organisation and through each node on the supply chain.

In terms of stabilising manufacturing in extreme situations, this deeper integration makes it possible to predict problems and rapidly identify and understand issues. ... on potential weaknesses I believe we’ll see that acceleration over the coming years. The pandemic highlighted to manufacturers important weaknesses or potential weaknesses in their operations.

Robotics won’t be the only solution to those issues, but it will play a role. ... on reaching the limit I’m not placed to say when or even if robotics will reach its limit. Human development is an extraordinary thing.

We keep driving ourselves on and reinventing how things are done. So, when it comes to technology, we are only limited by our imaginations.

“In terms of stabilising manufacturing in extreme situations, this deeper integration makes it possible to predict problems and rapidly identify and understand issues.”

2021-2024 FOCUS ON INCREASED EXPANSION INTO THE US MARKET WHERE SL CONTROLS IS EXPERIENCING GROWTH

... on SL Controls In March of this year, we announced a significant expansion of the company with 50 new jobs to be created in Ireland over the next 18 months to bring our total workforce to 140. We will also be creating new jobs in the US where the company opened its first office in 2020. We are forecasting an 80% increase in turnover by 2023. Our goals include to become the provider of choice for equipment systems integration solutions in Ireland and grow our reputation in the US and beyond. ... on instinct I was told a long time ago to always go with your gut and to this day, I always trust my own instincts. ... on operating in Ireland We have international ambitions at SL Controls but being an Irish company and having a presence across the country, in Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Dublin and Cork, is extremely important to us. While we could do with more engineers in Ireland, the level of skills here is exceptional. Ireland also has thriving medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturing sectors, which are crucial for our business.

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TECHNOLOGY Cloud Computing

In recent years, Ireland has established itself as an international hub for data-driven and cloud computing companies, and as the need for interconnectedness within businesses increases with the nature of work and workforces changing over the last year due to the pandemic, this burgeoning sector has risen to the occasion.

Businesses have rapidly accelerated their journeys to the cloud as they look for ways to support and protect a digital workforce, lower overall costs, and improve business resiliency. And while this transition means data becomes more dispersed across SaaS applications, cloud and hybrid environments and endpoints, so the protection and management of that data must become more centralised.

Those companies providing a solution that can offer unified visibility, security and

CLOUD

COVER A DA M H Y L A N D E X P L A I N S W H Y

T H E N O R T H W ES T R EG I O N H A S S E E N A G R O W T H I N DATA - D R I V E N C O M PA N I ES A N D C LO U D S E R V I C E P R O V I D E R S T H AT W I L L C O N T I N U E A S T EC H E X P E R T I S E IS FOSTERED IN THE AREA

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TECHNOLOGY Cloud Computing

management of data, no matter where it’s being created or stored, stand to gain, and while Dublin’s cloud computing hub is wellvaunted, the North West of the country has now emerged as an extremely viable region in which to establish a base.

Adding to the already large tech presence in the region, in the past few months alone, renowned tech company SITA has announced 55 new jobs at its Letterkenny base, US tech company Overstock is expanding its software team in Sligo, and Big Data and cloud service provider Eliatra is set to make Sligo its EU headquarters.

CLOUDRANGER/DRUVA One company that typifies this surge in North West tech innovation is IDA-backed, Letterkenny-based CloudRanger, a cloud server management service and data protection and recovery provider that was acquired by Silicon Valley giant Druva in 2018 and serves as an integral part of that company through its provision of a holistic end-to-end solution for traditional and modern cloud infrastructures.

“As the world moves to the cloud, we have been uniquely positioned to help businesses

David Gildea, CloudRanger

“With rising ransomware threats and evolving data privacy regulations, data protection has become a critical layer in maintaining business continuity and remaining compliant”.

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TECHNOLOGY Cloud Computing

“With CloudRanger, Druva was able to provide solutions for traditional and modern cloud infrastructures that customers were increasingly seeking”.

navigate this movement,” says David Gildea, General Manager and Vice President of Product at CloudRanger/Druva. “With rising ransomware threats and evolving data privacy regulations, data protection has become a critical layer in maintaining business continuity and remaining compliant, and Druva’s platform has become critical to helping businesses manage, protect and govern their data.”

For him, Ireland, and particularly the North West, is now perfectly positioned to take the lead in this growing sector for a number of reasons.

“Ireland has a number of unique traits that help attract investment,” he points out.

“We have a highly educated, technical workforce that is able to adapt quickly to evolving technology trends. The North West in particular has a large population of roughly 400,000 people in Donegal/Derry and the surrounding areas. Its low cost of living and great work-life balance makes it an attractive place to work, and is well suited for investment.”

He cites the support provided by the IDA as another factor in the company’s growth.

“IDA has been a great help in a number of areas,” he tells me, “but in particular, the grants and supports they have provided have been a great incentive to companies within our sector to continue investing in Ireland.”

CloudRanger originated at the renowned CoLab innovation centre at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, an institution that has seen a wave of new talent emerge through its excellent tech and IT courses, and from David’s initial start-up, has since grown to be an integral part of the Druva offering.

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“I recognised a gap in the market for data protection of Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud services,” David tells me. “After a number of years building the product in the North West, and with the help of the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the CoLab, we started to get recognition on the global stage. With this visibility, we received the attention of Druva, and their strategic acquisition of CloudRanger significantly expanded the capabilities of their Cloud Platform. With CloudRanger, Druva was able to provide solutions for traditional and modern cloud infrastructures that customers were increasingly seeking.”

FOSTERING TALENT As well as the fact that new ways of working mean location need no longer be a barrier, especially when data is being transferred to the cloud and becomes accessible from anywhere, one of the big reasons behind the emergence of the cloud service provision and data management sector in the region, and a major factor in CloudRanger/Druva’s success, is the relationship with institutes of technology and other local educational institutions in the borders area, which offers two-way benefits.

“Our work with these institutions has ranged from helping with placements for college students and reviewing course content, to making sure the next generation of IT professionals are equipped with the latest and most relevant skills needed to succeed,” says David.

“We have had students from Transition Year in secondary schools join us for internships, and have provided an entry point for them, right through to full college placements for students studying cloud computing at Letterkenny IT. This has been a great opportunity for us to work with local talent, but it also helps students to gain valuable experience at a tech company working on a global stage.”

Reflecting its growth, CloudRanger/Druva has now sought to almost double its workforce in Letterkenny, expanding from 25 to 45 employees.

“As we continue to build the next generation of data protection in the cloud, Druva is excited to expand our highly-skilled team right there in the North West. These new key technology positions will help support our continued global growth,” says David.

“We are focused on expanding the Druva Cloud Platform and supporting AWS workloads will continue to be a key component of our data protection strategy. With enterprises rapidly moving to the cloud, this has never been more important. With our expanded workforce, our focus will be to deliver new features such as Kubernetes data protection in a suite of tools for AWS Workloads.”

CYBER COMMUNITY Druva has also played a key role in the establishment of the North West Chapter of Cyber Ireland that was formed last year to meet the need for engagement and collaboration between cloud service providers and data-driven companies emerging in the region.

The group brings together industry leaders, academia and government to represent the cyber security ecosystem in Ireland and enhance the innovation, growth and competitiveness of its members.

Paul Brady, Director of Information Security for Europe at innovation company Optum, which also has a strong presence in the region with 140 people working in cyber security at their site in Letterkenny,

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TECHNOLOGY Cloud Computing

is one of the Chapter leads, and he tells me the creation of a Chapter specific to the North West was inevitable, given the number of tech expertise and development in the region.

“After talking to other Cyber Ireland members, I spoke to the IDA and other companies about furthering relationships with the ITs in Sligo and Letterkenny, and I was overwhelmed by the response from people,” he says. “We were hiring for Optum in the region because we wanted to have people who were knowledgeable of the sector and because of those strong links with the courses run at Letterkenny and Sligo IT, which are very well-established.”

Those links continue to grow, with North West tech companies other than CloudRanger/Druva also actively hiring from the IT talent pools and fostering an interest and experience in data and cloud-driven technology in schools.

“We have had a lot of good feedback and engagement already,” Paul tells me.

“This year in our North West Chapter we won’t focus so much on webinars because after the last year, people are kind of sick of them,” he jokes, “but we are looking at setting up a summer camp for Transition Year students on cyber security, showing them how there is a viable career in it, while we also have a mentorship programme (for those interested in entering the tech, cloud and data management industry) that we are very excited about, and we will be involved in and represented at events such as the IT Sligo Engineering and Technology Expo among other things. It’s all about small steps this year, and then bigger things when we return to normality.

“We can encourage people to work in the North West and show them that we have the opportunities there,” he adds. “We can encourage reskilling, and foster graduates

“As we continue to build the next generation of data protection in the cloud, Druva is excited to expand our highly-skilled team right there in the North West”

from the ITs, collaborating and making sure we have the opportunity to do so, and we can build relationships with companies in the region in healthcare, pharma and medical devices, who are now starting to hire people for industrial security, another aspect of cyber security. It’s all about building a tech and cyber security community in the region.

“There are a lot of good things happening in the North West at the moment with companies and groups in Sligo and Letterkenny, but the North West Chapter aims to bring all of that together, to coordinate all of that good work across the region.”

“The future is very bright for Ireland, and for us in the North West, especially if we can continue to focus on education and attracting more top technology companies to the border regions,” David Gildea adds.

“Ireland has some fantastic opportunities for growth with large enterprises in these regions. If we can continue to grow the technical workforce, we will attract more talent, which will benefit everyone.”

Indeed, with a continuous supply of tech talent emerging from the region’s ITs, and an increasing number of international and homegrown companies viewing the region as an excellent place to do business, the future for data-driven and cloud service providers in the North West looks positively bright.

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good NEIGHBOURS S I N C E T H E R EC E N T M E R G E R O F I N S T I T U T ES O F T EC H N O LO GY I N T R A L E E

A N D C O R K , T H E N E W LY E S TA B L I S H E D M U N S T E R T E C H N O LO G I C A L U N I V E R S I T Y ( M T U ) H A S A N I M P R ES S I V E G R O U P O F T EC H N O LO GY G AT E WAYS U N D E R I TS U M B R E L L A , A N D S T R O N G R ES E A R C H R E L AT I O N S H I P S W I T H N E I G H B O U R I N G I N D U S T R I ES , B OT H I N D I G E N O U S A N D I N T E R N AT I O N A L .

DEANNA O’CONNOR investigates the advantages of tech clusters.

Brid McElligot

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Ireland’s Institutes of Technology have a long history of harnessing the power of industry collaboration; working with external partners has led to tangible impacts in the regions, fostering innovation clusters around these centres of learning. The recent amalgamation of Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and IT Tralee into Munster Technological University (MTU), has created an impressive multi-campus university with a regional footprint of six sites across the South West region, in Cork and Kerry, offering over 140 programmes, and hosting a student body of 18,000. On the establishment of the new University, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD called it “an important milestone for higher education in Ireland” and noted the regional impact, saying, “The new Munster Technological University will start its journey and drive access, excellence, and regional development. It will strengthen the links with businesses in the country and the community, all of which will greatly enrich and enhance the South West”. “A strong and innovative higher education sector is vital to sustaining and developing community and economy,” states Bríd McElligott, Vice President for Research, Development and External Engagement at MTU. “The establishment of MTU represents a transformative change in access to higher education, professional training, focused research and community/enterprise engagement in Kerry and the South West. Creating a strong economy depends on creating places that can foster enterprise and innovation and attract investment and talent. Partnering with industry and community, MTU will build on a legacy of strong cross-sector relationships with start-ups, innovators and industry leading companies and will work with its many stakeholders to ensure the region leverages the potential of its location.”

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SUPPORT Te c h C l u ste rs

TECHNOLOGY GATEWAYS The Enterprise Ireland-funded Technology Gateway programme was set up to foster partnerships between educational institutes and industry on research projects. Technology Gateways are located in institutes across the country and provide open access to all sorts of companies to engage in research and innovation and offer enhanced training on emerging technologies. The new MTU is now home to four, along with a number of other industry-specific tech clusters. The former CIT hosts the Technology for Embedded Computing (TEC) Gateway with expertise in ICT system level solutions, and the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Process Analysis (CAPPA) with expertise in the generation and exploitation of light. The former IT Tralee hosts Shannon ABC, which supports companies across a range of life sciences projects, and IMaR, which offers expertise in ICT and engineering. Research activity has grown exponentially over the past decade, aided by successive institutional research strategic plans that placed an emphasis on supporting research collaborations across multidisciplinary departments and growing collaboration with external partners, to drive research and innovation activities. To give an example, CIT’s research income directly from industry has risen steadily yearon-year, up to €2.64 million in 2019, up from €896,299 in 2018.

According to Dr Niall Smith, Head of Research at MTU, there has also been a shift from a large number of small projects with industry to a smaller number of larger projects funded by industry and a greater development of long-term partnerships. In strategic multi-annual research programmes with external partners, partners are influencing research activity and research institutions are simultaneously influencing them. These research and innovation clusters have extremely positive impacts on the regions in which they are located - generating highly qualified PhDs, attracting new skills and expertise to the region, attracting industry and business collaborators to the areas, increasing employment, and overall improving the quality of life.

Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre

SHANNON ABC Over the past number of years, the Kerry campus of Munster Technological University has played a leading role in collaboration with industry in securing over €2.5m in funding for several industry-specific tech clusters. These industryspecific tech clusters support the work of two research centres based on the Kerry campus - Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre (Shannon ABC) and the Intelligent Mechatronics and RFID Gateway (IMaR). Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre began as a collaboration between Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) and originally IT Tralee, now absorbed into MTU. Shannon ABC delivers close-tomarket solutions for industry in sectors including agricultural, food, marine, medical and pharmaceutical. Shannon ABC has developed significant expertise in bio-resources detection, identification, characterisation and valorisation - and collaborates with industry and other research centres in order to deliver this expertise in applied settings. The centre conducts confidential industrial biotechnological research and acts as an access point to wider research resources and infrastructure, responding to the challenges of biotech, food and life science industries through the sustainable development of viable and cost-effective processes and products from bio-resources. Stryker, the US-headquartered medical technologies corporation, has worked with the Shannon ABC on proof of concept work to enable development of a new platform technology. In a testimonial for the Shannon ABC, the Project Manager at Stryker noted that, “During the development phase of any novel technologies, the start-up costs for high-tech equipment can be quite prohibitive.

The range of top-end analytical equipment available at Shannon ABC and its proximity to the Stryker Limerick facility made this the ideal solution.” Previously, they would have looked internationally to achieve the same results, and the spokesperson added, “In the past, we have had to travel abroad for such services and it is a real benefit to the Mid-West region and Ireland to have this facility on our doorstep. In addition, the staff of Shannon ABC have been extremely accommodating and strong links have been formed with the facility that will ensure that Stryker will continue to utilise the services again in the future.”

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CAPPA The Centre for Advanced Photonics & Process Analysis (CAPPA) is based in Cork, and provides photonics solutions to companies in sectors such as photonics, medical devices, food and pharma. Photonics is the science of generating, controlling and detecting light. The field is at the crossroads of several disciplines including physics, electronics, mathematics and chemistry. CAPPA’s scientists have partnered with a host of industry partners including well-known names such as Janssen and Nestlé. Many of the advances in the field of photonics involve wavelengths (or colours) of light that are invisible to the human eye, so its impact is less visible. Despite being invisible to us, UV light has a great many useful applications in diverse fields such as curing of adhesives, security tagging and biological imaging.

Infra-red (IR) light, meanwhile, would be most commonly known for its applications in thermal imaging, but it is also used in fields such as spectroscopy, telecommunications, electronics and astronomy.

GE Healthcare’s Plant Reliability Manager described CAPPA as, “our go-to on materials investigation issues”, and went on to say, “CAPPA lab, people and systems are technically first-class, but also flexible and businessfriendly.” Alcon, part of the Novartis group, is the world’s largest ophthalmic company. Its facility in Cork employs 360 people. CAPPA has worked with Alcon since 2008 on various direct funded consultancy projects in conjunction with the Process Engineering and Quality Assurance groups within the company. This has provided Alcon with access to CAPPA’s high resolution imaging and spectroscopy facilities to assist them in a wide range of materials, process and product investigations. Barry Walsh, MS&T Tech Transfer Lead/ Chief Scientific Officer, Alcon, explains, “We use the expertise of CAPPA on an ongoing basis for carrying out tests on products.

Having CAPPA on our doorstep is hugely beneficial to Alcon as it provides us with the cutting-edge analytical technology we need to make informed decisions on our process and projects.” CAPPA also worked with New Hampshire, USA-headquartered ProPhotonix, a company which designs and manufactures LED illumination solutions and laser module across its facilities in Cork, and Essex, U.K. Having identified a gap in the market, “ProPhotonix ProPhotonix to both understand their target gained access idea and to demonstrate the technological to key research and development challenges that were involved. Through this expertise that Innovation Partnership and in conjunction would otherwise with CAPPA partners in the Tyndall Institute, not have allowed a series of initial modules were designed and them to develop fabricated. According to Ken Reynolds, this product. The Business & Technology Manager at company now has ProPhotonix, “ProPhotonix gained access to a market disruptive key research and development expertise that product available would otherwise not have allowed them to to them with key develop this product. The company now has customers targeted.” a market disruptive product available to them with key customers targeted.”

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MTU Tralee Campus MTU Tralee Campus

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IMAR The Intelligent Mechatronics and RFID (IMaR) Technology Gateway (imar.ie) is based in Tralee, providing solutions for companies using Intelligent Mechatronics, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Internet of Things (IoT), focusing on the delivery of a wide range of automation, identification and manufacturing services. Through partnerships with industry and business, IMaR gains pragmatic knowledge through pilot implementation of IMaR proof of concept in the real-world rather than solely in laboratories. These mutually beneficial partnerships have been created through EU and nationally funded mechanisms. Some of IMaR’s multinational partners include GE Global Research, Liebherr, Astellas and Vistakon (a division of Johnson & Johnson). IMaR is also the lead partner in the Applied IoT Technology Gateway Group. This consortium brings together 300 research professionals in software, hardware, communications/networks, data analytics, control, UI/UX and trialling, from the five Technology Gateways across the nationwide network via a dedicated portal. The cluster also includes TEC, WiSAR based in Letterkenny IT, MSTG based in Waterford IT, and COMAND based in Athlone IT, as well as a support office in Dublin.

These mutually beneficial partnerships have been created through EU and nationally funded mechanisms. Some of IMaR’s multinational partners include GE Global Research, Liebherr, Astellas and Vistakon (a division of Johnson & Johnson.

Shannon Applied Biotechnology Centre

CIRCULAR BIOECONOMY CLUSTER SOUTH WEST

A new Cluster project will set the South West region apart as a Circular Bioeconomy leader.

By 2030, it is expected that one million jobs in the bioeconomy will be created across Europe. The newly-launched Circular Bioeconomy Cluster South West aims to put the region at the forefront of innovation, technology and talent development, with a focus on marine and waste-to-value themes. Based on the MTU Kerry Campus and funded through the Regional Technology Clustering Fund, the Circular Bioeconomy Cluster focuses on strengthening collaboration between researchers, technology providers, and industry to develop, scale and internationalise next generation bio-based products, services and value chains, whilst in tandem driving forward to transition to a low carbon economy. Answering to a multi-sectoral need to create added value from waste streams and the Marine Sectors, it will provide companies with access to key enabling technologies and disruptive business models to enable new inter-firm partnerships and scale a new wave of bio-based innovation, products, services and value chains start-up and talent development. “In addition to existing companies embracing this diversification opportunity, MTU looks forward to working with the Cluster companies providing research, innovation and upskilling supports,” states Dr Helena McMahon, Head of Department STEM & Circular Bioeconomy Research Group. For more information, see cbcsw.ie.

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LEADING Expansion

Healthy HEARTLANDS 40

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LEADING Expansion

H I G H -T EC H G LO B A L C O M PA N I ES A R E C H O O S I N G R EG I O N S I N T H E H E A R T O F I R E L A N D TO LO C AT E T H E I R M A N U FA CT U R I N G FA C I L I T I ES . D E N I S E M AG U I R E C A U G H T U P W I T H T W O F I R M S TO F I N D O U T H O W M A K I N G T H E M I D L A N D S T H E I R H O M E H A S B E N E F I T T E D T H E I R B U S I N ES S .

Ireland’s Midlands is a proven location already supporting and servicing a large number of international companies across a range of business sectors. In recent years, a number of global businesses have made the Midlands their home and alongside the advantages of being centrally located, they’re benefitting from a large talent pool, competitive property prices and a quality of life that’s second to none.

In 2019, Greenfield Global Inc., Canada’s largest producer of alcohol and fuel ethanol, announced plans to establish a new EU manufacturing headquarters in Portlaoise.

Today, the company is well established in its purpose-built facility in the town’s IDA Ireland Business and Technology Park and expects to go into commercial production later this summer. Greenfield, which has its headquarters in Toronto, has operations in 12 locations across North America. The company’s extensive portfolio of products is trusted by hundreds of customers in pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, life science, personal care and food, flavour and fragrance markets in over 50 countries.

Greenfield’s high-tech facility in Portlaoise holds the honour of being the first compliant NZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Building Standard) building in the country, a standard that the company was eager to reach from the beginning of the construction process.

“To meet that standard, we had to make adjustments to the design and fabric of the building and we also had to ensure that energy consumption came from 20% renewables on site. To achieve that, we installed a CHP plant and air to air systems and we also increased the insulation of the fabric of the building. As a company, our

goal is to continually make our operations more efficient and our products more sustainable, all while reducing our own carbon footprint,” says Ken Finegan, Managing Director – Ireland, Specialty Chemicals and Ingredients at Greenfield.

In 2020, construction of the new 3,800 square metre manufacturing facility was

interrupted by Covid. “Over just one weekend, we had to incorporate new safety protocols to make the site safe for all workers. In that initial lockdown, we were only one of five construction projects that were allowed continue due to the essential products we produce for hand sanitisers and more importantly, the buffer solutions

Ken Finegan

“As a company, our goal is to continually make our operations more efficient and our products more sustainable, all while reducing our own carbon footprint.”

Ken Finegan, Managing Director – Ireland, Specialty Chemicals and Ingredients at Greenfield

Greenfield, Portlaoise

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EJ , Birr, Co. Offaly

we produce which are used in the Covid vaccines.” DPS Engineering, the main contractor on the project, got on board to ensure safety was paramount on the site.

Such was the success of the project that it was used as a template by the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) in rolling out its Covid safety protocols.

Before Portlaoise was selected as a prime location for the company to establish its European HQ, the team at Greenfield looked at 32 sites around the country. “Portlaoise came out on top due to its proximity to ports and to the airport. Options around scalability were also important; we have ambitions to develop and grow within our current site and have already drawn up plans for a 20,000 square foot expansion to our warehouse. We have also registered interest in an adjoining site to increase our production capacity in the medium - to long-term.” As customer engagement grows, Greenfield expects to see substantial growth over the next few years. “We need to be able to meet that global demand and our Portlaoise site will allow us to meet that growth.”

A high calibre of people in the area was another major draw for the company.

“Employment at a local level is important to us. We have 13,000 people leaving Portlaoise every morning and going to the surrounding counties for work and that’s something we can have an impact on.”

Since moving into the facility in August 2020, supporting local industry suppliers has also been important for the team at 42

Greenfield. “As much as possible, we’ve tried to use the abundant service levels that are available in the community. That’s helping us to build relationships with our neighbours which we see as a key element of our ‘settling in’ process.”

In 2019, EJ, a family-owned company headquartered in Michigan, announced the official opening of its new production facility in Birr, Co. Offaly. EJ provides a full line of access solutions for water, sewer, drainage, telecommunications and utility networks worldwide. Alongside traditional materials of grey or ductile cast iron, the facility also produces a highly innovative, Irish developed range of access covers using the very latest composite materials. According to

Europe. At the moment, we’re exporting most of our products but we’re noticing a lot of growth in the Irish market which we’re poised to take advantage of,” says Vincent Cooper. Birr has grown to become an important international manufacturing base for EJ, capable of producing enough composite covers that meet the latest European specifications for its local and neighbouring markets.

EJ already has a strong presence in the Irish market with its traditional products but sees a substantial potential for growth on the composite material side. “What’s driving this growth is health and safety ergonomics; people are looking for lightweight solutions that give the same performance. A lot of

“At the momen, we’re exporting most of our products but we’re noticing a lot of growth in the Irish market which we’re poised to take advantage of.”

Dr Vincent Cooper, Composite Product Manager at EJ

Dr Vincent Cooper, Composite Product Manager at EJ, composite materials offer numerous advantages over their metal counterparts. They’re much lighter, which makes transport and handling easier and cheaper and they also boast health and safety benefits for the people who have to work with the products. As they’re a fibre reinforced plastic, they are also nonconductive which offers many benefits in power and data transmission applications.

Another plus is their weather-resistance performance and durability in extreme conditions which is at least equal to that of traditional products. Finally, with no metal content, the products have no resale value and therefore are of little attraction to thieves. It took two years to take the research from the lab, commercialise it and put it into production in Birr. “Now, we’re going from strength to strength and we’re supplying to all our subsidiaries across

companies are now focusing on the health and safety of employees. The other big drive is of course the environmental aspects of the products and that’s a big draw for companies eager to reduce their carbon footprint.” County councils and local authorities are showing an interest in EJ’s innovative composite materials while the Birr team is also at an advanced stage of talks with major European telecom and electrical utility companies. “For those large firms, moving away from traditional metal or concrete products to solutions like ours is a big move.”

The current drive to identify and work with businesses that produce in Ireland is pushing companies like EJ, says Vincent.

“Since Covid hit, the emphasis has very much been on ‘local’. Companies are increasingly looking to local producers and that push is putting us in a very strong position.”

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TECHNOLOGY Drones

Drone technology is opening up opportunities in almost every industry, from arts and technology to philanthropy, and businesses across the world are using it in some form. JENNIFER McSHANE talks to Professor Tim McCarthy, who is involved in Drone Research and Development (R&D) for U-Flyte, a Science Foundation Ireland funded project based at the National Centre for Geocomputation at Maynooth University.

He explains the challenges currently facing the drone industry and the opportunities it will afford global companies.

Flights of Fancy IDAIRELAND.COM

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TECHNOLOGY Drones

F O R T H O S E W H O A R E N ’ T O V E R LY FA M I L I A R W I T H T H E U S E A N D F U N CT I O N O F D R O N E T EC H N O LO GY, AT I TS M O S T B A S I C L E V E L , I T H A S G I V E N B U S I N ES S ES A N A E R I A L P E R S P ECT I V E T H E Y W O U L D N ’ T O R D I N A R I LY H AV E G OT T E N I N T H E PA S T. D R O N E U S E G O ES A S FA R B A C K A S T H E 1 9 0 O S . H O W E V E R , T H E C O M M E R C I A L A P P L I C AT I O N O F D R O N ES H A S R E A L LY O N LY TA K E N O F F I N T H E L A S T F I V E O R S I X Y E A R S W H E N I T B EC A M E C O M M E R C I A L LY AVA I L A B L E AT A R E L AT I V E LY LO W C O S T F O R U S AG E . T H E I R U S E H A S N AT U R A L LY E X PA N D E D S I N C E I N C E P T I O N A N D TO DAY, G LO B A L C O M PA N I ES U S E T H E M F O R A VA R I E T Y O F F U N CT I O N S .

Starting in 2018 and coming to an end in early 2022, U-Flyte is a strategic research partnership, coordinated by Maynooth University and funded by Science Foundation Ireland, together with key industry collaborators including Airbus, Irelandia Aviation and Intel. Essentially, the R&D workplan is based around a series of interconnected work-packages that primarily deals with investigating, building and testing Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), TrafficManagement (UTM), underpinned by a 3D drone airspace model (U-Space).

“Our research is in two distinct parts: one that deals with Aerospace and Air Traffic Management systems for drones. Another part then dealing with the data platform, given that drones are censored up with optical radar navigation. So, we’re involved with quite a few activities, whether it’s deliveries with Bobby Healy’s Manna, right through to working with Irish Search and Rescue (SAR) teams and everything in between,” explains Professor Tim McCarthy.

With drones, he says, in a nutshell, you can do a few different things which serve as great opportunities for businesses, and the attraction for use comes in varying forms.

For many companies, it’s looking at the efficiency of drones; it’s about time-saving, cost-saving, to an environmentally-friendly option – all of which the technology offers.

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“You’ll always start with data acquisition, so you’ve got your cameras on board, and these can map, monitor and detect. They also have LiDAR systems (similar to radar), and they basically capture three-to-five dimensional photos – a 3D view of the ground.”

“Then you move to filming for movies, documentaries, or videography to logistics, things like delivery services, right up to larger scale functions such as air taxis from Volocopter and so on.” The German-based European company is as ahead of the curve as anyone right now, Tim says, in terms of looking a couple of years down the line where instead of jumping into a standard cab, you’ll instead use one of their environmentally-friendly electronic air taxis.

“In terms of what’s here with us now, for most companies, data-gathering and mapping, certainly for specialised services such as SAR, is at the fore, whereas things like logistics and package delivery, air taxis and all of that – that’s the big prize and it’s still a couple of years out.”

Of course, with any evolving technology and industry, there are challenges, particularly when it comes to testing and developing Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and the rules and regulations which come with that. “The big issue, with some of the delivery services, and also the air taxi services, is they bring you in close contact

with humans; by definition, therein lies a problem. Anytime you mix roles with humans, it can cause a few issues, not just regulatory and safety-related, but also things like privacy can and do come up.” A key thing to combat potential issues regarding security, is training and awareness, both in terms of operating the drones and the information put out to the general public.

“Essentially, you’ve got to reinvent the human as a machine. In Volocopter, for example, what they’ll probably be doing is a scenario where there will be actual pilots sitting inside these two-and three-seater aircrafts, starting off the service because of the safety and the regulatory certifications needed, along with the supporting technology – basically to ensure the plane doesn’t fall out of the sky or to ensure they don’t crash into one another in the air! You need perspective sensors on board – it’s the same as the analogue for autonomous cars and the problems these are causing, be it mixing up people that are in front of them or whirring past a road sign.”

“And even though the sensors have got a lot more compact and affordable, it still is a big ask to have a central system that replicates what a human can do,” Tim continues. “So at the moment, in terms of the technologies, you’re more looking at collision avoidance, so Detect and Avoid

“In terms of what’s here with us now, for most companies, data-gathering and mapping, certainly for specialised services such as SAR, is at the fore, whereas things like logistics and package delivery, air taxis and all of that that’s the big prize and it’s still a couple of years out.”

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TECHNOLOGY Drones

“I think here, it goes back to the bigger picture and not just looking at robotics, but a complete ecosystem, not just in terms of mobility, data gathering or logistics, but it’s way across the full spectrum. I think we’ve got to look at it like the robots are here to stay.”

(DAA) and general lower airspace monitoring before we can go a bit bigger with package deliveries and then air taxis and so on.”

However, companies are working on this, from the European-based SESAR to NASA UTM in the United States and in Ireland he agrees we’re as much at the frontier of drone technology and what we’re doing with drones’ technology and applications, certainly as any other European country.

However, in order to have a cohesive, fullyfunctioning, drone-based outlet, companies do have a lot of work ahead of them before drone technology is ready to be regularly used city-to-city.

Volocopter plans to make air taxi services a reality in Singapore within the next three years.

Using custom-developed aerospace grade drones, Manna deliver directly from restaurants and centralised kitchens to consumers’ homes.

“What you tend to see currently is a lot of companies going out, trying to kind of concentrate on getting their platforms up in the air and getting them certified. But that really is only half the battle. The other half is to make sure that the supporting technologies in terms of lower airspace monitoring [are in place], and making sure that you’ve got really robust strategic and tactical automated pathfinding, particularly in case of an emergency event – so it’s making sure all those subsystems are all functional.

And really, everything has got to be right and across the line together. And in the future, it won’t be just drones talking to systems on

the ground, but it will also be drones talking to other drones, talking to other robots, and their autonomous cars and air taxis – and everything getting interlinked. So there might be five or six major things that need to be more developed with more testing before drone technology is going to become a reality over our towns and cities.”

“I think here, it goes back to the bigger picture and not just looking at robotics, but a complete ecosystem, not just in terms of mobility, data gathering or logistics, but it’s way across the full spectrum. I think we’ve got to look at it like the robots are here to stay. At the moment, they’re coming in at a thinner edge of the wage in terms of things like data gathering and some of those tasks but they are definitely here to stay and I think in our lifetime we will be looking at a vista of air taxis and delivery drones all connected up.”

And crucially, critical to the long-term success of drone technology is human involvement.” One of the most important elements of this is we have to bring the humans along with us. We’ve got to actually pull that tab along the line, making sure that this technology is something that we, as humans, would be happy with, and not just the technologists making the calls on what they think should be laws or in regulation, we need to bring in the wider set of inputs from ordinary citizens from different backgrounds, just to make sure we get it right.”

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ACCESS Gateways

Outward

bound We investigate how the major shipping ports in the South East region have adapted to accommodate the demands of Brexit and what it means to be the gateway to Europe and beyond.

I R I S H P O R TS O F F E R T R A N S P O R T S E R V I C ES , FA C I L I T I E S A N D M A R I T I M E S U P P LY C H A I N S O LU T I O N S TO A W I D E VA R I E T Y O F I N D U S T RY S ECTO R S . I R I S H P O R T T R A F F I C A C C O U N TS F O R O V E R 9 0 % O F I M P O R TS A N D E X P O R TS M O V E D I N A N D O U T O F I R E L A N D A N D FA C I L I TAT ES A N AV E R AG E O F 4 . 5 M I L L I O N F O OT A N D C A R PA S S E N G E R S E V E RY Y E A R .

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Ireland’s three main ‘Tier 1’ ports are Shannon Foynes, Cork and Dublin which account for over 80% of total bulk volume, with Rosslare Europort and Port of Waterford in the South East being classified as Tier 2 ports.

In 2017 Irish ports handled approximately 53 million tonnes of goods, a near record volume. As a result, Irish ports are currently investing multi-million euro sums in expansion and upgrade projects guided by strategic masterplans. There is an increased focus on new investment in infrastructure, staffing and ICT systems at these ports to manage the necessary checks and controls on EU-UK trade post-Brexit. This investment will ensure the long-term provision of efficient and competitive port services to meet the growing needs of Ireland’s open trading economy.

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ACCESS Gateways Glen Carr, General Manager of Rosslare Europort

ROSSLARE EUROPORT Rosslare Europort, owned and managed

by Iarnród Éireann, is Ireland’s key geographically-located port for the UK and mainland Europe. It handles roll-on roll-off (RoRo) freight and passengers, agricultural and trade vehicles, bulk cargo, oversize loads, cruise ships, wind turbines and other offshore renewable energy facilities.

As a result of Brexit, Rosslare Europort has upped its sailings to Europe from three sailings a week to Europe to 16 in the first quarter of 2021, and Glen Carr, General Manager of Rosslare Europort, says more are being added, with negotiations are ongoing with a number of shipping lines to further increase this number to cater for the greater demand. Connections now run to Bilbao, Saint-Malo, Cherbourg, Roscoff and Dunkirk.

Rosslare Europort

Rosslare Europort

“There is significant investment planned in Rosslare Europort’s facilities, through its Infrastructure Masterplan and the deployment of technology, to create Ireland’s smartest digital and automated port.”

“When we compare the first two months of this year to last year, continental freight (freight coming in and going out to Europe) was up 476% and now UK is down 43%,” states Carr. “Overall freight in Rosslare Europort is up 51% for the first two months of the year. Rosslare Europort has been a massive success in the first two months post-Brexit.

“In terms of the trade, we’re seeing it from across the board - food, ingredients, fruit, pharmaceutical, Amazon, IKEA, machinery - lots of big organisations both in Ireland and Europe. Typically, in the past, the continental traffic would have been mainly outbound. However, with the new services, we’re seeing slightly more inbound traffic.”

A S M A R T D I G I TA L P O R T Over the coming years, there is significant investment planned in Rosslare Europort’s facilities, through its Infrastructure Masterplan and the deployment of technology, to create Ireland’s smartest digital and automated port.

The overall masterplan will see an investment circa €35 million. “We’re reconfiguring some of the layout of our port, and putting in additional infrastructure.

There’s a new entrance being built into the port specifically for freight which will link into the main road,” explains Carr.

It is anticipated that the N25 Rosslare Europort Access Road project could proceed through the statutory planning processes by the end of 2021.

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ACCESS Gateways

Port of Waterford

“Port of Waterford, together with the port community here at Belview, is a proud facilitator of economic activity for this region and further afield.’’

Port of Waterford

The port’s strategic plan includes significant investment of circa €1.5 million in the digitisation of the port and will transform Rosslare Europort into a smart port capable of meeting the needs of a post-Brexit Ireland as the closest port to mainland Europe. This will include vehicle recognition systems, trailer tracking systems, compound management and check-in and check-out systems. The plan has identified opportunities for the port to make better use of available capacity, improve efficiencies and target specific sectors, while promoting the benefits of congestion-free access to European and UK markets.

R A I L F R E I G H T S T R AT E GY 2 0 4 0 Given that Rosslare Europort is owned by Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), Carr is a keen advocate for greater use of rail for onward transport of freight. “We want to develop many more rail hubs connected to deep ports,” says Carr.

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The submission by Iarnród Éireann to the National Planning Framework’s Ireland 2040 Plan highlights that improving both rail and road connectivity to Rosslare Europort will be a key priority over the NPF planning horizon, both in terms of connectivity to the port hinterland and international links to the UK and continental Europe.

Rail currently carries around 1% of freight tonne kilometres in Ireland. There is significant potential for growth in the sector to help Ireland meet EU targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Rail is the most environmentally sustainable form of ground transport, using just 15-25% of the direct energy per tonne-kilometre than used by road transport.

P O R T O F W AT E R F O R D Less than an hour from Rosslare Europort by road, Port of Waterford is Ireland’s closest multi-modal port to continental Europe.

Originally based in the heart of Waterford

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ACCESS

*TEU=TWENTY-FOOT EQUIVALENT UNIT; A UNIT OF CARGO CAPACITY USED FOR CONTAINER SHIPS.

Gateways

City, Port of Waterford moved to a purpose built site 8km downstream from the city, at Belview, Co Kilkenny in 1992. Currently around 500 commercial vessels call at the Belview terminals each year. In addition to these vessels calling at the Belview terminals, around 100 vessels call at the town of New Ross, using the common dredged navigation channel.

“The South East of Ireland has a compelling proposition to make around investment, lifestyle and people,” says Frank Ronan, CEO, Port of Waterford. “Port of Waterford, together with the port community here at Belview, is a proud facilitator of economic activity for this region and further afield.’’

The Belview Port zone encapsulates the IDA Ireland Business Park (which includes Glanbia’s Belview plant) plus the Smartply, O’Brien Cement and Signode factories.

There is extensive warehousing, storage facilities and office space in the zone and considerable scope for further industrial and commercial activity.

IDA Ireland’s Strategic site at Belview comprises 60.9 hectares of fully-serviced land suitable for large-scale utility intensive

industry, of which c.54.63 hectares of lands are currently available. Its convenient location on the Belview Port Road is approximately 2km from Waterford City.

PORT FACILITIES The Port of Waterford is active in bulk handling, break bulk/project cargoes and lift-on lift-off (LoLo) container handling - in other words, using cranes to transfer shipping containers from the dockside to the ship.

The bulk side of the business is predominantly import and focussed on agri-inputs, while the container operation supports a wide range of imports and regional exporters from the food, pharmaceutical and other sectors. The port is linked to the national transport network both by road and rail. The annual value of goods through the port was estimated at €1.7 billion in 2017 with just under 1,000 jobs in, or supported by businesses in, the port zone.

“We handle over 1.5 million tonnes of bulk products annually (mainly agri-related) together with another 100k+ tonnes of break bulk (mainly timber, steel and project cargoes),” explains Ronan.

“The port also operates in the Container/ LoLo sector handling over 50,000 TEUs* with spare capacity to significantly increase that throughout. LoLo services run to/from Rotterdam and are operated by shipping lines DFDS and Samskip.”

NORTH WEST CONNECTIONS “Belview has excellent inland connectivity including direct access to the M9 and active rail connections into the port,” says Ronan. “The Port’s position and available capacity provides a very strong basis for new rail freight and LoLo container service development in the short-to medium-term.”

Belview Port has full rail access with four rail sidings into the container terminal, allowing containers to be loaded directly to/from ships from rail or road transport.

There was a twice weekly rail service connecting the North West Ireland region in/out of Port of Waterford chartered by DFDS and operated by Irish Rail, but this operation is currently suspended. It is a

core objective of Port of Waterford to get this connection to the West/North West back in action.

Ronan states, “We anticipate a reopening of the rail freight services into the port from the North West in the near future thereby bringing the efficiency and capacity of our port to businesses from that area.”

R E A DY F O R L I F T O F F LoLo is currently a smaller part of the business in Port of Waterford. However, Ronan states, “It is certainly conceivable that LoLo trade has the potential to experience a step change in activity based on the requirements of the economy of the South East, the return to operation of the rail link and generally strong transport connectivity of the port, congestion in the larger ports, and the potential capacity available in the port of Waterford.

“Existing services to and from Europe provide a real option to using the UK landbridge or the more expensive direct RoRo routes to the continent,” states Ronan.

“The multinational companies in the region which utilise the port for their exports understand utilisation of the best transport and logistics option has the ability to make a significant contribution to the carbon minimisation of their supply chains. It is good to see that understanding of the value of local and regional shipping is starting to become more mainstream.”

Frank Ronan, CEO, Port of Waterford

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THE

global meld 50

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a MSD IRELAND MSD Ireland (or Merck & Co in the US and Canada) is the seventh largest exporter of medicinal and pharmaceutical products in the world. The company plays a pivotal role in the Irish pharmaceutical industry as well as Ireland’s economy, employing almost 3,000 on Irish shores alone and 30,000 across the globe. Mairéad McCaul, Managing Director of MSD’s Human Health Business in Ireland, says the supply of quality medicines, regardless of the pressures of a pandemic, remains a top priority.

“As a leader in the pharmaceutical sector, we are always extremely aware that we have a responsibility to patients around the world who depend on the medicines and vaccines we develop. This is not only true during a global pandemic or in times of crises, it’s something that is part of our DNA at MSD at all times, across all levels of our business,” she says. “The last 13 months have really shone a light on the complexities of our healthcare systems at global level, with Covid-19 stress-testing institutions to the max, and our role in this very complex context must always remain, ensuring ongoing supply of quality medicines and vaccines for the patients and people who need them: that remains our first and most important duty.”

Cooperation with other global companies is key at this time, she says, as everyone works towards a common goal. “Earlier this year, we were very excited to announce our company’s US partnership with Johnson & Johnson, where we will make some of our existing manufacturing sites in the US

LEADING Learning

A S W E E X I T A Y E A R W H I C H H A S S E E N U N P R EC E D E N T E D P R ES S U R E O N T H E G LO B A L M E DT EC H I N D U S T RY, T H E PAT H O U T O F T H I S PA N D E M I C A L L L E A D S U P TO T H E S A F E P R O D U CT I O N O F VA C C I N ES .

A S T H E R A C E TO VA C C I N AT E T H E W O R L D G A I N S M O M E N T U M , J E N N I F E R M c S H A N E S P E A KS TO M S D I R E L A N D A N D I N D U S T R I A L P R O D U CT I O N P R O C ES S ES ( I P P ) , T W O K E Y C O M PA N I ES I N V O LV E D I N T H I S P R O C ES S , TO S E E W H AT T H E F U T U R E H O L D S A N D W H AT T H E Y H AV E G L E A N E D F R O M T H E I R J O U R N E Y S O FA R .

available to help expand manufacturing capacity and supply of its Covid-19 vaccine to enable more timely delivery and administration. The partnership marks an unprecedented collaboration between two of the largest global healthcare leaders, joining forces to help expedite our collective return to normalcy. We know more hands on deck means speedier vaccine distribution, and that’s why this partnership is so important. Medicines cannot be put on hold.”

“Global health challenges require a global response,” Mairéad continues, and in this way, a precedent has been set which should be maintained for the fight against other diseases. “We know surpassing this

pandemic will require global collaboration among countries, industries, academia, patient organisations, and civil society - we won’t find solutions working in silos. Such ground-breaking progress could not have happened without a collaborative approach to science and innovation. Could it and should it be replicated in future for other disease areas? Certainly, and we should all strive to ensure that collaborative spirit is maintained.”

She highlights the Irish teams in particular as a positive in terms of the global collaboration that has been so heightened and essential over the past year – and as something that can and will continue long after the pandemic. “The pharmaceutical

“The last 13 months have really shone a light on the complexities of our healthcare systems at a global level.”

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LEADING Learning

industry’s huge presence in Ireland can certainly help and foster collaboration, both directly and indirectly – and this is something we see every day in our industry, something that has been present for years and not just as a direct result of the pandemic.

Industry associations and representative bodies can play an invaluable role opening up room for dialogue and debate. People have a huge part to play in this as well. Ireland has a very highly skilled and talented workforce. The culture at our Irish sites has always been vibrant and dynamic, and moving that culture to the online remit was not easy, but it is a testament to the talent and passion of our teams that we were able to do so almost seamlessly.”

“I think, if anything, the current context has proved our ways of working to be resilient,” Mairéad adds. “From constant contingency planning to agile teams and hybrid work systems, we have found a new way of operating that has brought both challenges and opportunities. As society hopefully starts to reopen, we have a job ahead of us to be able to identify what worked and what didn’t during the past 12 months, for our employees, for our business, for our communities listening and adapting to the needs of the people at the core of our organisation.”

“You’re talking about product safety which effectively is about patient safety, It’s been a massive effort and all for the greater good.”

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INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PROCESSES (IPP) Cork firm IPP is another company playing a key role in the safe distribution of vaccines, including the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. IPP, trading for almost four decades, is a technical distributor of manufacturing equipment for the pharmaceutical, medical device and electronics industries, as IPP’s Managing Director Jack Daly explains: “[Our focus] is in terms of packaging, testing, packaging validation and packaging serialisation. Within the serialisation we supported Pfizer in Europe as part of those serialisation requirements, which came into effect in early 2019, where you have to track your product from manufacturing site to usage for all pharmaceutical products. Once the vial is made there is a barcode on it that we capture, and we can link all individual barcodes and break it down at every level and report and trace the entire journey through to the end user. So what we do from an IPP point of view is we basically provide the equipment on the manufacturing lines that allows for Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies to execute this feature.”

“You’re talking about product safety which effectively is about patient safety,” he says. “It’s been a massive effort and all for the greater good.”

In terms of the case being made for a similar fight when it comes to other infectious diseases, Jack says the main difference here was how fast it became a problem on a global scale. “It really comes back to the scale of the problem and reaction. It goes deeper than ever before, making different arguments for different age groups and for different cohorts of workers and so on. And we need those principles of science, industry, and politics coming together to get the world back on track as a multi-generational, oncein-a-lifetime event. And what it does show is that with science, if it’s properly funded, you can truly see the benefits of it, as opposed to just focusing on it on a commercial level. There’ll be a lot of learnings from this ultimately and it’s just very nice to see that we, as a small company were recognised for our contribution for that; the workforce’s skill set was of use outside of the commercial activity and we can make a small contribution in helping to get the vaccines rolled out.”

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TRAVEL The Irish Bucket List

TRAFFIC JAM T H E S H E E P H I G H WAY Go: When you’ve gone about as far west as you can on Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, you’ll find a small stone pathway, The Sheep Highway, leading to the sea at Dunquin Harbour. This pathway and ferry have been used since the Blasket islands were inhabited and still provide an important link for the islanders and to bring sheep to graze on the Islands. Do: Take the ferry from the harbour to the Blaskets for the chance to spot rare seabirds and marine life. Eat: Back on the mainland, head to Dingle to Chewy and the Beast located outside the famous Dick Mack’s pub for tasty wood-fired pizza.

W H AT ’ S T H E D I F F E R E N C E B E T W E E N A TO U R I S T A N D A T R AV E L L E R ?

T R AV E L L E R S K N O W

T H AT L O C A L S A R E T H E B E S T R ES O U R C E W H E N E X P LO R I N G SOMEWHERE NEW. WE OFFER UP S O M E R E A S O N S T O S TAY OUTDOORS THIS SUMMER.

THE SERPENT’S LAIR

Local

Lore ISLAND HOPPING

Go: The Wormhole or Poll na bPéist, is a natural, rectangular shaped pool at the bottom of the cliffs south of Dún Aonghasa on Inis Mór and home of the annual Red Bull Cliff Diving event. It gets its name from ‘péist’ which is the reptilian sea monster from Gaelic folklore. Do: From Dún Aonghasa, follow the signs for Gort na gCapall (or just ramble (carefully east along the cliffs from Dun Aonghasa). Wear sturdy shoes as it can be slippy. On the rare days when the Atlantic is quiet, people have been seen to try their diving skills.

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TRAVEL Local Lore

EXPLORE THE IRISH FJORD

K AYA K I N G A C R O S S

Go: Killary Harbour, arguably the most dramatic of Ireland’s three fjords, is surrounded by breathtaking mountain vistas, and forms a natural border between the counties of Galway and Mayo. Do: Take the old grass-covered road which runs along the southern side of the fjord. Watch out for the ruins of an old famine village, a reminder of the devastation suffered in this region during the potato famine. Eat: You will eventually come to the Misunderstood Heron boasting and ever-changing menu of fresh food and excellent coffee.

T H E S TA R - F I L L E D , B I O LU M I N ES C E N T, LOUGH HYNE IN CORK IS AN E X P E R I E N C E N OT TO B E M I S S E D A N D

IRISH FJORD

N E V E R TO B E F O R G OT T E N . H E A D OUT AS THE SKY DA R K E N S A N D WA I T F O R T H E S H O W TO BEGIN. DON’T F O R G E T TO D I P YO U R H A N D I N T H E W AT E R .

LIGHT SHOW B E A C H E S . T H E B LU E F L AG I S O N E O F T H E WORLD’S MOST RECOGNISED ECO-LABELS .

83 BEACHES AND 10 MARINAS WERE AWA R D E D T H E F L AG F O R T H E 2 0 2 1 S E A S O N .

JANE MATTHEWS

IRELAND HAS AN ABUNDANCE OF BLUE FLAG

T O U C H I N G H E AV E N

A L L S TA N D U P T H E C H U R C H AT T H E T O P O F I R E L A N D Found on top of Croagh Patrick, also known as the Reek, a Calvary church overlooks the spectacular, island-strewn, Clew Bay in County Mayo. Considered the holiest mountain in Ireland, it has both a Pagan and Christian history, and is climbed by pilgrims each year in July in honour of Saint Patrick who, according to tradition, fasted and prayed on the summit for forty days in the year 441AD. Alternatively pilgrims climb the Reek in June to celebrate the Summer Solstice and October in honour of the harvest festival of Lughnasadh (Halloween).

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TRAVEL Local Lore

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP

TOP IT OFF

PLACE A BET

RACING THE TIDE

JAMES MOORE

The Laytown Races, on the eponymous beach in Meath, first began in 1868. They run one day a year, in early September, the race course is set up as the tide recedes in the morning and the races are run before the tide turns allowing for only six races.

Many of Ireland’s champion jockeys have ridden winners at the Laytown Races, including Ruby Walsh, Colin Keane, Pat Smullen and Nina Carberry.

Go: Malin Head in Donegal is Ireland’s most northerly point. This area of great scenic beauty is also of great historical, scientific and ecological importance.

Do: This is also a favourite spot in the Aurora Borealis season. Eat: Head to the Slieve League cliffs next and on the way stop for one of Michael McGinley’s lobster rolls. The fisherman checks his pots every morning so you can be assured you’re eating the freshest of lobster.

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TRAVEL Local Lore

M O U N TA I N B I K I N G PEDAL POWER

ADRIAN VAN DER LEE

Go: The Dublin and Wicklow hills, in particular around Ticknock, provide some of the best places for mountain biking in Ireland, with a perfect mix of wide forest paths and the more exciting single tracks.

Do: If you don’t want to go it alone, book a tour with biking.ie. With trails to suit your ability, they make it as challenging or as easy as you can handle. Eat: Head back to Dublin to The Salty Buoy, a quirky Citroën H food van serving up lobster rolls, shucked oysters, crab, fresh fried fish, creamy chowder, chargrilled smoky prawns and classic fish and chips.

FREEWHEELING Go: Head south east to Waterford.

Do: Take an easier, but no less scenic cycle along the Waterford Greenway. The 46km paved bike path winds its way around the base of the Comeragh Mountains and follows the River Suir, along the route of an old railway line, to Dungarvan, a pretty quay-side town. You’ll be rewarded with scenic picnic spots, hidden history, towering viaducts and even a vast tunnel.

CYCLING S E AT O F T H E H I G H K I N G S

HILL WALKING

Go to: Hike up to the Hill of Tara in the Boyne Valley, Ireland’s mythical capital and seat of the High Kings. It is said that a quarter of the land of Ireland can be seen from this hill. Do: Facilities at the visitor centre include an audio visual show, while guided tours of the Hill of Tara are available on request. Access to the Hill of Tara is open all year round. Eat: Head to the Rock Farm Slane market on Thursdays. On offer are organic meat and vegetables from Rock Farm, and goodies such as local cider, candles, cakes and delicious takeaway food.

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This is a land where opportunities flourish. A safe and stable environment where sustainable progress is at the heart of everything we do. It’s in our pro-business philosophy. Our highly skilled, English-speaking workforce. Our commitment to the EU. And in our can-do attitude.

This is where collaboration grows, fostering lasting and productive business partnerships in world-leading technology, life sciences and financial services hubs.

This is Ireland. A natural place to put down roots.

See how we can help your business grow. Visit idaireland.com or email idaireland@ida.ie

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