Aug 27 2010
I read this fascinating article during the week: 100 ways to spend the Anglo €25,000,000,000.
It is really sad and depressing to see how the Irish Government decided to spend all this money, when they could have used it to make us become the world leader in almost any area of science and technology :(
What a waste!
Jul 16 2010
As always, I am delighted to read about the Irish Government investing in third and fourth level education. I am a product of the education system, so I am very familiar with how important this is to the Irish economy.
Today’s announcement is that the Government will invest 296€ million over the next six years. For more details see Govt commits €296m to third level research. (The article appears to confuse third level and fourth level.)
This certainly is great news, but part of it deeply concerns me:
The money will be spent funding buildings and also directly on individual research projects.
The article then continues:
Overall the funding announced comprises €260m to be spent on infrastructure and almost €100m to spend directly on research projects.
I really hope that I am wrong, but this looks like a construction industry investment rather than a research investment! The Government (through NAMA) already owns more property in this country than anybody else. A lot of this property is commercial, and it is currently unused. This really makes me wonder who is the Government trying to support by creating more buildings!
It really is depressing, especially since this is not the first time that this has happened. For example, I wrote about this in Irish Government Research Investment. I have many friends currently involved in research in the Dublin Universities. There certainly is a shortage of money. However, I do not think that any of them would prioritise buildings above more people or equipment!
As an aside, I wonder how much of the previous 300€ million is being included in today’s announcement.
May 26 2010
Electronic Arts (EA) has announced that it is going to create a customer service and operations centre here in Ireland. That certainly is good news for Ireland, as well as for job seekers. The only thing that I do not understand is why it would want to locate in Galway, which is very isolated from the international markets, instead of Dublin.
For more information about this see EA to create 200 jobs in Galway.
May 24 2010
Today Webroot announced that it is to create its international headquarters here in Ireland. This will create 50 new jobs, which of course is great news!
For more details about this announcement read Internet security firm to create 50 jobs.
Apr 03 2010
More good news in the Irish employment market - Citrix is expanding its Irish operations.
See Up to 30 new jobs for Citrix in Dublin for more details.
Mar 27 2010
In Openet Expansion I recently expressed the opinion that the economy was picking-up in Ireland. The trend seems to be continuing, because eBay, LinkedIn, and IBM all made job announcements during the week:
It is great news, although I think that this trend is mainly confined to the ICT industry.
Mar 16 2010
I was delighted to read yesterday that Openet has launched an expansion program for its operations in Dublin. This expansion consists of creating 35 new jobs. Perhaps more impressive is the fact that these jobs are being described as R&D type jobs! For more information about this read Openet’s R&D investment creates 35 new jobs.
I have recently heard a lot of anecdotal evidence from friends and colleagues that the economy is slowly starting to improve again in Ireland. This would appear to be more evidence of this!
Mar 06 2010
I read an interesting article in The Irish Times recently about Microsoft’s view on cloud computing data centres in Ireland. The article covers comments by John Vassallo who is Microsoft’s Vice-President of EU Affairs, and it can be read online at Data centres may attract 20,000 firms.
It is a short (and slightly meaningless) article. However, one comment by John Vassallo really caught my attention:
Mr Vassallo added that Ireland was cited in a recent publication as “a beautiful place for a data centre” due to its climate.
It is difficult to interpret this comment! I am not even sure if this is serious! Perhaps the cloud analogy is being taken too far :D
Dec 15 2009
Vodafone has updated its Irish website recently. The two changes that excite me the most are:
The timing of these changes is perfect for me to send all my Christmas greetings :)
Dec 13 2009
I have almost completed my Christmas shopping for 2009. I did all of this online for the second year in a row! (Last year’s shopping is described in Online Christmas Shopping 2008.)
I did not buy a single item in Ireland this year, and this was mainly due to the ridiculously high costs. I understand that part of this is due to the higher VAT on items in Ireland (see Online Shopping just got Cheaper), but I also think that retailers are still ripping-off consumers. Indeed, the most expensive single item I bought was a piece of Japanese electronics. The Irish price was over 50% more expensive than the price I bought it for abroad!
While I am writing about shopping, I came across a very entertaining online shop - http://producten.hema.nl/ (You need sound, and a small amount of patience, for this :D )
