The impact of this is clear, and was acknowledged by Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath on Wednesday.
Some point out that the cuts merely return the companies to the headcounts of a few years, or even months, ago, and can be explained by “company specific” factors. But the fear is not that the technology companies merely revert to a pre-existing stable state with fewer employees, but that rapid expansion and contraction is a signal that may belie deeper issues in the sector.
An experienced FDI executive concurred: “We don’t have a domestic market which can support anything else, so you kind of have to accept that as a cost of the business model that we have.”The IDA, on Wednesday, suggested in a statement to the Oireachtas enterprise committee that it could be time for a wider strategic rethink, perhaps hooked on a forthcoming white paper from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.
Others are more doubtful that a rethink can have a meaningful effect. Many “capacity constraints” cited by the IDA as “negatively impacting” and “eroding” Ireland’s advantages are near-chronic problems – energy, water, infrastructure, planning and, above all, housing. The paramount importance of tax revenues from multinationals provides a backdrop.