Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On a contrary approach, one of the entirely false accusations made against some of the large companies that operate out of Ireland is that they are somehow brass plate entities or that they are only tax vehicles. That is nonsense. Apple has been one of the biggest employers in Cork for almost four decades. I can recall that in the late 1990s, when we had just entered into government, there was huge clamour from the Opposition to do what we could to prevent Apple from closing in Cork. It was related to its pipeline at the time and so on. The late Joe Gantly who was managing director of Apple in Cork went to Steve Jobs and told him that they could do different things in Cork, in the provision of customer support and financial operations in the European and the Middle East and Africa, MEA, region. The level of employment was not significant at the time; I do not think it was as much as 700 or 800. Its growth has been dramatic and the real innovation has been the advent of touch screen iPhones, the iPod, the music revolution, Apple's research capacity and so on, which transformed its operations in Cork, in both manufacturing and also service support for the MEA region.

Whether we like it, a report was published today on growth in Ireland from the 1980s to date. Notwithstanding the global financial crisis and its impact on this country, growth has been upward. Without question, our foreign direct investment policy has been the linchpin of Ireland's industrial and economic growth from the 1980s and before, the 1960s and 1970s. If one looks to see what was the defining change historically, it was opening the country to foreign direct investment.

See this speech in context