You have to ask the question? Could the quarter of a billion euros paid to Intel by the Irish government have been better spent?
Has it kick-started any high-tech companies? Has it attracted anyone else to do fab in Ireland? No and No.
I remember talking to one of the Intel team which trawled Europe in the late 1980s being feted by governments wanting their countries to host Intel’s European fab. It sounded like the progress of a medieval prince round the courts of Europe: dinners, cocktail receptions, entertainments, lavish promises of lucre.
At that time a semiconductor fab was thought to be the greatest high-tech prize a government could attract, and an Intel fab was the crème de la crème.
Scotland managed to get a clutch of them. There was the Motorola fab which was extended many times, National’s fab, NEC’s brace of fabs, a Hyundai proposed fab (never facilitised) and a DEC fab. All now pretty much gone except National and a reduced Motorola facility.
And all for what? Was there any significant Scottish high-tech activity generated by the presence of those fabs? Was there heck.
The vast amount of regional development grant tipped over the heads of these companies would have been far better spent on backing Scottish start-up companies. As is now generally acknowledged.
In fact it took the EC to save the Irish from themselves. It transpires that, as late as 2004, the Irish government was trying to tip another 170 million euros over Intel to secure a new 1.6 million euro manufacturing plant but the EC blocked it.
Intel then announced it would build a fab in Israel, not surprisingly because Israel offered 630 million euros in grants. The Irish plans were put on hold.
Will Ireland now redirect that 170 million euros to supporting its local engineering talent?
Probably not.
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