‘Team Northern Ireland’ is missing the point; focus on Wall Street not Washington

It has to be said that Northern Ireland did not put up a strong showing at yesterday’s Ireland Day at the New York Stock Exchange. It was a very one sided event, despite a solid performance by Gary Hanley of Invest NI over lunch. Only three of the original roster of forty two speakers and panellists came from Northern Ireland, namely Brian Conlon, Shaun Kelly (KPMG) and myself. All this despite the fact that the event was inspired and hosted by my former boss Duncan Neideraurer of NYSE Euronext, a leading advocate of doing business in Belfast.

It leaves me with the impression that ‘Team Northern Ireland’ is missing the point, choosing to focus on courting politicians in Washington later this week, while passing over the best opportunity in a generation to deliver our message to ‘American Business’ and the capital markets. Wall Street not Washington is the engine room for foreign direct investment (FDI); they forget that at our peril.

Looking to the future, we really must do better and from my perspective there are three clear and overriding messages to be taken from yesterday’s session.

Firstly, as Denis O’Brien stated in yesterday’s opening session: “Ireland [the whole Island of Ireland] is not broken!” Yes, we have experienced some crushing blows in property and construction, both North and South, in recent years, but sectors such as life sciences, finance, FDI and our export markets remain at an all-time high. We still have the best educated workforce in the world, with universities both North and South delivering new waves of high quality graduates year after year. 

The results of which mean the island of Ireland is now dominating key international markets that strictly speaking we have no right to dominate. Belfast, for instance, is quickly emerging as a global leader in financial technology, not least due to the efforts of Mr Conlon and Mr Neideraurer. The penetration of life sciences across the island is astounding, including the emergence of Northern Ireland’s Randox and Almac as global leaders.  We’re far from broken.

Secondly, the island Ireland is without doubt the favoured location for American Corporates and US FDI. The reasons are obvious: language, culture, social mobility, geography, travel routes, deep historical links with the US, all underpinned by a young, hungry and determined work force. A number of the American speakers emphasized that Ireland, North or South is just as convenient to businesses on the East Coast as some of the Southern States or parts of the West Coast. Also, critically, Ireland falls between two huge markets, with the US to the West and Europe to the East making it easy for an US CEO to stop off in either Belfast or Dublin on a trip to London from New York. 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, most critically, the American Corporates who have taken the plunge to invest in Belfast, including NYSE Euronext, CitiGroup and Caterpillar, are expanding and continue to move core functions to Northern Ireland, despite substantial restructuring of their global operations in the years following the ‘credit crunch’. 

Finally, there was one issue that saw common ground amongst speakers from all backgrounds yesterday, including the Mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg. Two words: Corporation Tax.

My position is clear, the Stormont Assembly can do one thing that will simultaneously transform the competitiveness of indigenous business and quadruple FDI; bring corporation tax in Northern Ireland in line with that in the Republic of Ireland. It should be the first act of our new Assembly in May. 

I recently spoke to a number of former colleagues who had expressed this view to the Assembly select committee a few months ago. They were shocked that a number of Northern Ireland politicians and academics were missing the big picture and opposed the tax cut. Interestingly, these were predominantly old men who’d never worked abroad. Perhaps they’d have a different opinion if the focus this week was on New York and not Washington.