Welcome to our news room. Here you will find all the latest news from the American Chamber as well as US companies in Ireland. If you would like to receive regular news updates, sign up for our weekly email FDI Focus.
US FDI has remained committed to Ireland during the unprecedented year of 2020 and 94% of respondents to a recent AmCham survey say their corporate headquarters in the US are positive about Ireland as an investment location. In light of the challenges ahead, such as Brexit and the predicted slowdown of the global economy, the Government must deliver a confident message to the world that Ireland is open for business.
The shortlisted organisations in the running for the 2020 US-Ireland Research Innovation Awards have been announced. The event, which traditionally takes place in May will be now broadcasted on December 10 with special guests the Irish Ambassador to the US Daniel Mulhall and Minster for Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris.
The American Chamber strongly welcome’s yesterday’s Cabinet decision that from the November 29th people travelling from ‘red’ European countries will not have to restrict their movements for the full 14 days if they obtain a negative PCR test result at least five days after their arrival. We note in particular that similar arrangements will apply to people travelling from the US. We also welcome the news that Government has also approved an extra €48 million package to support the aviation sector, in addition to the increased funding allocated to Cork, Shannon and regional airports. Ireland’s connectivity is a key element of the country’s economic success, and is particularly important to the multinational sector.
The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland has announced the appointment of three new Board members, Dr. Orlaith Lawler, Senior Director of Operations, Beckman Coulter, Tulla, Co Clare; Deirdre Mullins, Site Director, Abbott Vascular, Clonmel, Co Tipperary; and Mike Beary - Country Manager, Amazon Web Services Ireland, and Director of HR, AWS Europe, Middle East & Africa.
Speaking in response to Budget 2021, The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland welcomed that there will be no additional tax on job creation through changes to income tax bands or credits in Budget 2021.
The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) has published Ireland’s Competitiveness Challenge 2020 which builds on the Council’s annual benchmarking report. The NCC has outlined 20 recommendations, the most relevant to AmCham are outlined here
Last Wednesday AmCham held a really constructive (virtual) meeting with Ministers Paschal Donohoe; Michal McGrath and Ossian Smyth – all of whom expressed deep appreciation for the work done by our member companies and their teams throughout the pandemic and the importance of multinationals to our economy and our society. We summarised for the Ministers the scale of our members’ impact – as set out in our Make the Bridge Stronger Report; the current sentiment about Ireland from our members (see survey results below) and the key recommendations in our Pre-Budget Submission
The American Chamber of Commerce Ireland welcomed today’s decision by the European Court of Justice that Standard Contractual Clauses for the transfer of Personal Data to third countries, including the United States, is valid.
However AmCham is very concerned that the ECJ’s decision invalidates the EU-US Data Privacy Shield – this gives rise to great uncertainty and complexity for business of all sizes, public sector organisations and not-for-profits on both sides of the Atlantic.