Firm Co-Sponsors MWTCI Program on Investment in the Gaeltacht

On 15 October 2009, in conjunction with the Maryland World Trade Center Institute and Udaras na Gaeltachta, the Irish government agency charged with promoting economic development in the Gaeltacht (those areas of Ireland where the Irish language remains in community use), the Firm sponsored a program, Introducing the Gaeltacht in Ireland: Maryland’s Business Gateway to Europe, in Bethesda, Maryland. Kevin O’Connell chaired the program.

In addition to detailed presentations by Udaras’ chief executive, Padraig O hAolain, and Jim Keogh, senior vice-president of the Enterprise & Employment Division of Udaras, the program included remarks by Laurence Simms, First Secretary of the Embassy of Ireland in Washington, Seamus Carroll of IDA Ireland’s New York office and Liam Keane, CEO of EcoEmergence, a Washington, D.C.-area company which recently established a subsidiary in the Galway Gaeltacht.

The Firm has seen that, in the wake of the global economic upheavals of the last year, a number of Middle Atlantic U.S. companies are displaying an increased awareness of and a renewed interest in the European Union, many viewing the Greater EU market as being, in many ways, as or more significant to them than China or India.

Recognizing this, and strongly believing in the unique benefits that Ireland, especially its Gaeltacht region, offers to EU-bound American companies, The Firm, in conjunction with our colleagues in London, has committed resources and expertise towards assisting these companies to enter the Irish market, as well as to utilize Ireland, significantly the locations within the Gaeltacht, as their EU regional base.

For information on this initiative and/or any aspects of foreign direct-investment in Ireland in general, and the Gaeltacht in particular, please visit www.udaras.ie and feel free to contact Kevin M. O’Connell at 410 268 3880 and/or via e-mail, kmoc@oconnellcohongkong.com.