As a leading supplier of advanced hybrid and electric vehicle (EV) technologies, BorgWarner further extends its production capabilities in Tralee, Ireland, with a major investment. At an event today with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD, the CEO of IDA Ireland, Martin Shanahan, Seán Kelly, MEP, and the mayor of Tralee, Terry O’Brien, the company announced a €10 million investment in capital equipment and a €1.5 million investment in facility renovations to expand the plant’s engineering and testing capabilities, create new jobs and improve the facility’s environmental footprint.

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Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD, today unveiled HQTralee as the first business hub to receive two years of free gigabit fibre broadband from Vodafone and SIRO as part of the companies’ national Gigabit Hub Initiative.

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Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD attended the official opening of the Dingle Creativity and Innovation Hub (The Dingle Hub) today. The new facility provides state-of-the-art services for start-up companies to establish, expand and collaborate with other businesses, not just in Dingle but across Ireland and internationally. The Hub plans to support the creation of over 100 full time jobs in five years.

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Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG), the global leader in serving patients with rare diseases, announces the opening of its new office in Ireland at the Miesian Plaza on Dublin’s Baggot Street. An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD, will join Shire leaders to formally open and dedicate the company’s new offices at an event held today.

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Tenable Network Security®, Inc., a global leader in cybersecurity, today announced, in partnership with Ireland’s Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland, the opening of its new international headquarters in the heart of the Dublin Docklands, and its plans to create 100 jobs over the next two years.

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Today, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor and Brian Lee co-founder and managing director of Chopped (@ChoppedIRL), the healthy food company, announced the creation of 320 new jobs, a mix of full and part time, as a result of Chopped’s continued expansion in Ireland. Chopped will open 20 new stores across the country in 2017. These stores will be joined by six new Chopped stores in the UK, its first outside Ireland, with the creation of 110 jobs to service the new outlets and manage the international roll out of the brand. The 20 new stores will be mix of wholly owned and franchised outlets.

The new outlets will join existing Chopped locations in Dublin, Kildare and Galway. Chopped has recently opened new sites in Talbot Street, UCD in Dublin and Newcastle Road, Galway. 2017 will see the opening of Chopped outlets in counties Wicklow, Cork, Waterford and continued expansion in Dublin.

Commenting on the new jobs, Minister for Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor said: “I welcome this news that Chopped is creating 320 jobs in 20 new outlets across Ireland. Indigenous Irish businesses such as Chopped are important to the national economy as well as making a valuable contribution to local areas through employment and expenditure. Ireland has one of the fastest growing employment rates in Europe and it is home grown companies such as Chopped that are helping to sustain this. I am particularly pleased that this expansion will lead to job growth in regions as balanced regional development is a key priority for me. It’s great to see young business people in Ireland build on their success here to fuel international expansion and I wish Brian and Andy and their staff continued success in the future both at home and abroad.”

Speaking at the announcement, Brian Lee, co-founder and managing director of Chopped commented: “Last year we set a target of increasing our staff numbers by 100 and we exceeded that expectation by increasing our employees by 140 in 2016. When we received the keys for our first store five years ago, we knew it was the beginning of something great, but we still believe this is only the beginning for Chopped. Our staff are what makes Chopped the success it has become and we are looking forward to seeing our family grow as we expand across Ireland and beyond.”

Chopped was developed to meet the needs of the growing number of Irish consumers who want a great tasting meal that is healthy, delicious and fresh. Everything about the distinctive grass clad interior exudes freshness and the visionary open theatre of food allows Chopped to offer a ‘create your own salad’ experience in front of the customer in minimum time. Crisp lettuce selections, garden fresh vegetables, salad dressings, and more than 30 ingredients are ‘chopped’ and freshly dressed into a unique salad bowl or in a sealed savoury wrap. Full calories are counted for each salad, wrap and sandwich and Chopped offers a delivery, collection, take-away and dine-in service, with fast meal service times. With all the Chopped flavours created by a skilled team in central kitchens, consistency of flavour is guaranteed across all outlets.

Today Citrix announced that it will create 150 new jobs as part of an expansion drive at its Dublin office, which is based in East Point Business Park, adding 26,000 square feet of office space to the current footprint. This project is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland.

The job creation comes as a result of a decision to centralise Citrix’s Inside Sales activities in Dublin, combined with an increased focus on Customer Success services and the growing adoption of cloud technologies by businesses across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The new jobs will primarily consist of Inside Sales and Technical Support Services roles to support Citrix transition to a cloud model.

Citrix’s current office facilities will also be upgraded to provide a state-of-art work environment, which encourages open collaboration and social interaction. The expanded office will provide workspaces for over 400 employees and will host the EMEA Inside Sales and Tech Support functions and other support roles.

Speaking at the announcement, Minister for Jobs Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor said:
“I am delighted to be here today for this major expansion by Citrix. We already have a strong footprint of ICT companies in the Dublin area and we always encourage these companies to expand and diversify. That is exactly what Citrix have decided to do, with the creation of an additional 150 valuable, high skilled jobs, which is a great vote of confidence in what we have to offer. I am confident that Ireland has the IT skills available to facilitate this exciting expansion.”

Sherif Seddik, VP and Managing Director of Citrix EMEA, added:
“We ultimately decided that Dublin is the best location to attract the right talent and build out our Inside Sales EMEA practice. Having first committed to Ireland in 1999, we have gone from strength to strength and are delighted to continue our growth story in Dublin.
Citrix recognises that the mid-market and SMB segments, combined with the move to a Cloud-based model, are pivotal to our success. Adopting cloud technologies in the enterprise is much more complex than just downloading an app. Companies have to rationalise all of their past, present, and future investments and tie them together seamlessly as they progress toward the cloud future. Today’s announcement will enable us to create a better experience for our customers and partners.
We are looking for a wide range of talent, including new graduates, experienced technical support engineers and sales staff. We would encourage anyone looking to take their career to the next level to explore the roles available.”

Speaking at the announcement, Martin Shanahan, Chief Executive of IDA Ireland, said:
“The decision by Citrix to expand in Dublin is a major endorsement of Ireland as a premier EMEA location for global software companies. The expansion reflects the increasing strategic role that Citrix’s Irish operation will have for the company in EMEA. Ireland is a committed member of the European Union and provides companies with guaranteed access to the European market. Ireland continues to attract the brightest multilingual talent from across Europe to work and live here.”

As part of this expansion, Citrix is also establishing a Sales Academy at its Dublin offices in order to develop junior sales talent, with the aim of preparing them for more senior roles with the company in the future. For technical roles Citrix has an established internship program that has been accepting candidates for over five years and have developed close links with the universities and Institutes of Technology in Ireland.
Recruitment for the positions has already started and Citrix intends to fulfill up to half of the roles by the summer, before completing the recruitment drive by the end of the year. For details of how to apply for these positions please visit www.citrix.com/careers.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor has welcomed the National Competitiveness Council’s Report benchmarking Ireland & UK competitiveness, which she says will help inform Ireland’s ongoing response to the economic challenge posed by Brexit.

The report identifies a range of priority areas which will require policy responses in the short, medium and long term to safeguard Ireland’s national competitiveness.

“The Council’s report provides a timely reminder of Ireland’s strengths, which need to be protected and enhanced, and also of areas where we need to remain vigilant and accelerate progress on addressing competitiveness gaps with the UK so as to ensure job creation across all regions,” commented Minister Mitchell O’Connor.

While the Council advises against any narrowing of the tax base which would leave Ireland exposed and says it must be ensured that the tax system supports and rewards employment, enterprise, investment and innovation it has commended the Government’s efforts in bringing fiscal stability and improved performance, describing it as ‘exceptional’.

The 2017Action Plan for Job sets out an ambitious target for Ireland to achieve a top 5 global competitiveness ranking based on the IMD Competitiveness Scorecard by 2020.

The challenges posed by Brexit provide urgent impetus to pursue policies that enhance our competitiveness performance. We have already begun steps to address this, prioritising investment to improve the availability and quality of infrastructure as part of the Review of the Capital Plan and the forthcoming National Planning Framework.

The report finds that a skilled labour force must be the key emphasis for retaining and winning mobile investment and the growth of a cohort of internationally-trading indigenous companies. We are continuing to invest in skills development under the National Skills Strategy.

We are enhancing access to competitively priced sources of finance for growth to facilitate businesses to establish and grow, including non-bank financing sources and increasing public investment in R&D to enhance Ireland’s innovation performance.

The Minister says her Department and the Government are very conscious of the need for a sustained focus on competitiveness and, ahead of the report, had already set out 20 actions in the Action Plan for Jobs to ensure we are prepared for the immediate and more medium term impacts of Brexit. “Through the reforms set out in the 2017 Action Plan for Jobs, my Department and others are working to improve the ease of doing business, reduce the administrative burden by putting transactions on-line, enhance our cost competitiveness such as addressing insurance costs, increase innovation capacity and productivity and drive greater efficiencies across the enterprise base.”

The Minister continued: “My Department is also increasing resources for Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland to increase the competitiveness of our indigenous enterprise base and enhance our attractiveness as a location for FDI relative to the UK. We have increased resources for the enterprise development agencies. Enterprise Ireland has published its new strategy for the period to 2020 while IDA Ireland is undertaking a progress review of its five year strategy. We are undertaking a review of our own Government enterprise policy Enterprise 2025. We are examining the sector-by-sector implications of the UK leaving the Single Market. Work is underway on possible future supports for SMEs that could be impacted by Brexit. And as a follow-on to the Government’s new Trade and Investment Strategy, Ireland Connected, launched in March, Enterprise Ireland will shortly publish its Eurozone Strategy.”

“So much has been done already to respond to the challenge of Brexit and we will continue to implement improvements to policies that were identified as priority areas in the report. Competitiveness is key to success in international markets and helping businesses to improve their competitiveness will remain a key focus for my Department and the Government”, commented Minister Mitchell O’Connor.

The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has commissioned a national study on Corporate Social Responsibility and are seeking participation from businesses of all sizes operating in Ireland. This will be the first comprehensive study of its kind in Ireland and will inform the development of Ireland’s Second National Plan on Corporate Social Responsibility which is due for publication this year
The study will assist the Government in ensuring Ireland’s international commitments in this area are met and, in this context, consultation with the private sector through the study is extremely important.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD said “This first national study is important in determining the level of Corporate Social Responsibility in Ireland in 2017 so that good practices can be effectively encouraged and supported. This government is committed to encouraging and supporting quality employment opportunities and CSR has an important role to play in making Ireland a great place to work and to do business.”

Industry consultation is central to the government’s approach to supporting and developing good CSR practices in Ireland. The CSR Stakeholder Forum is comprised of industry representatives, academics and representatives of many government departments. The Forum has been meeting regularly since September 2015.

A new chair of the forum was recently announced with Catherine Heaney, Director of DHR Communications taking over from outgoing chair Brendan Jennings, Managing Partner at Deloitte Ireland.

Speaking about importance of CSR Catherine Heaney said “CSR has multiple benefits. It allows employees develop new skills, meet new people and work on projects outside of their comfort zone. It opens up opportunities for collaboration and networking between clients from different sectors. Most importantly, it means we know we can provide support to charities, organisations and individuals to which we are deeply committed.”

Businesses, of any size and sector, operating in Ireland are encouraged to participate in this study by visiting www.csrhub.ie and completing the survey by Friday 14th April 2017.

The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation promotes CSR online through the CSR Hub, the @CSRHubIRL Twitter account and a quarterly e-zine.