UK financial firms eying relocation to Ireland
A high number of UK banks and financial institutions are planning to move to Ireland when Britain leaves the European Union (EU), an Irish investment agency says.
British companies comprise most of the over 100 companies that have inquired about relocating to Ireland, Martin Shanahan, the chief executive of the Industrial Development Agency (IDA), said Sunday.
Shanahan, whose company is tasked with bringing foreign investments to the republic, added that most of the firms were located in London.
“We have seen a huge increase in the amount of inquiries and activities across the globe. It’s not just our office in London, or our office in Dublin; we are receiving inquiries in Asia, in the US, in New York in particular. The figure that we have used to date is over 100 related inquiries,” he said.
Noting that Ireland was looking forward to make capital out of Brexit, Shanahan said the country had no plans to change its low 12.5 percent corporation tax, which makes the country a major attraction for foreign investments.
Ireland will be the only English speaking country in the EU if Brexit goes as planned and the UK leaves the bloc in 2019 according to Prime Minister Theresa May’s two-year timeline.
Shanahan said this would give Ireland and his company extra momentum in wooing foreign firms and convincing them to relocate.
“For the financial services sector it is the fact that they need to have access to the European market and they need a jurisdiction in which they can do that. Ireland is extremely attractive because we are English speaking, have a common law system, there is the close proximity to the UK,” he explained.
Another key factor that has made Ireland a potential destination for global business is its strong economic growth in the past two years despite the instability and uncertainty of global politics in the wake of Brexit and US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, Shanahan argued.
“In the context of a very turbulent world Ireland looks very stable economically because of the strong growth in 2014, 2015, and it looks the same in 2016. And we look very stable from an enterprise and policy perspective as well,” he said.
Ireland’s low tax rate for corporations has facilitated major tax evasions. Earlier this year, the EU ordered American tech giant Apple to pay some 13 billion euros (14.5 billion dollars) in unpaid taxes to Ireland.
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