Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is strongly committed to the promotion and development of the financial services industry in Ireland, both in the IFSC and other locations throughout the country. This commitment is illustrated by the launch in March 2015 of the Government’s IFS 2020 strategy. The vision of the strategy is for Ireland to be the recognised global location of choice for specialist international financial services, building on our strengths in talent, technology, innovation and excellent financial services. The aim of the strategy is to increase the numbers employed in international financial services in Ireland by 30% or 10,000 net new jobs over the five years of the strategy, from 2015 to 2020. I am pleased to say we are on track to reach this target. In 2015 over 2,600 net new jobs were created in the IFS sector in Ireland and in 2016 a further 2,000 net jobs were created. 

As part of the implementation of the 2020 strategy, new implementation structures were established and the clearing house group no longer exists. An industry advisory committee represents the financial services industry and a high level implementation committee, a senior group of civil and public servants, represents the public sector. These committees meet jointly on a quarterly basis under my chairmanship.

Officials in the Department are in regular contact with IDA Ireland to promote Ireland for international financial services and both the Minister and I have met various IFS firms to promote Ireland for international financial services investment. In 2016 a communications sub-group was launched as part of the IFS 2020 framework in order to co-ordinate consistent messaging and promotion of Ireland’s IFS offering to international investors. All IFS stakeholders, Government and industry bodies now use the IFS banner brand to promote Ireland on the international stage. The IFS 2020 strategy is reviewed annually through the publication of action plans. In January I launched the IFS 2020 action plan 2017. The action plan for 2017 is divided into two sections. Section 1 is a contextual piece outlining the development of the strategy, with a strong focus on Brexit. Section 2 contains a suite of 40 individual measures with lead Departments, agencies and organisations assigned responsibility to deliver these measures.

In January the second annual European financial forum was held in Dublin Castle. The forum which was hosted by me and the Department was designed to showcase Ireland's financial services offering to an international audience. About 650 individuals from more than 300 companies were present at the forum. A third annual European financial forum will be held in Dublin Castle on 31 January 2018.

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