US medtech group Teleflex announces another 100 jobs for Athlone

US medical devices company Teleflex has said that it plans to create a 100 high-skilled jobs over the next three years at its operation in Athlone, bringing the size of its Irish workforce to about 435.

The company, based outside Philadelphia, announced the expansion plans after a visit by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton, who is on a five-day trade mission to the United States.

Teleflex, which makes medical devices for critical care and surgery, already employs 176 people in Limerick and 160 in Athlone. There are research and development facilities at both locations. The Limerick operation also manufactures medical devices.

The company set up the Athlone operation in 2007 and the facility's expansion is being supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland.

Speaking at a meeting with senior executives from Teleflex at its headquarters in Pennsylvania, Mr Bruton said the jobs were in line with the Government’s strategy to create high-skilled employment.

“Ireland has become a much better business environment in the last number of years and we want to sustain that, particularly for companies which enhance the sectors we have a competitive edge in,” he said.

The proposed “knowledge box” tax system that would allow firms separate income from intellectual property, research and development and to pay a different tax rate on them, was aimed at attracting “some of the most ambitious companies in the world”, such as Teleflex, he said.

Teleflex chairman and chief executive Benson Smith said Teleflex has had a "very positive experience" in Ireland over many years.

He praised the education system and pro-business environment, and noted the ease of access into Europe from the US and the benefits of operating out of a country where English is the first language.

On the Government’s policies, Mr Smith said that multinationals were always sensitive to costs and the benefit of doing business in any location, so research grants and incentives helped ease decisions.

“No matter what you are doing, usually we are displacing jobs from one place to put them in another place so there has to be some overall package of incentives that would encourage us to do that,” he said.

Asked whether he had concerns about the risk to Ireland’s low corporate tax rate from changes in international taxation, Mr Smith said the Government had “a good sensitivity” about the overall package for multinationals being attractive and that tax was only part of this.

“My sense is that they want to provide companies with at least some longer-term perspective that it is likely to stay favourable,” he said. “I think that is important and as we look at other potential locations, the potential for change in perspective over time is a factor.”

Mr Smith expressed scepticism about the recent wave of corporate inversions where US companies, including rival medical device maker Medtronic, relocate overseas for tax purposes through a takeover.

“An inversion just for an inversion’s sake is very tough, at least from our perspective,” he said, given that it was hard to see how long the benefits might stand “without some government inference particularly in the US.”

Tax was part of the motivation behind inversions, he said, but it was never going to be enough on its own to make a large acquisition.

“At least in the medical device industry, I think there is a wait and see attitude about whether the companies will be able to get all the benefits from the inversion that they thought,” he said.

The Athlone office has expanded from an operation with responsibility for Europe, Middle East and Africa to an international office with global responsibility for key functions in a company that employs about 11,500 people worldwide.

Liam Kelly, an Irish executive at Teleflex based in Pennsylvania, said that Athlone was attractive as a hub for medical device companies as it could attract people with IT skills from Dublin and employees with experience in medical devices companies in Galway.

Martin Shanahan, chief executive of IDA Ireland, said that several companies the Minister met on his trade mission in Boston, Washington DC and Philadelphia had noted the ease of doing business in Ireland and the country's location as "a bridge" between the US and Asia.

“Businesses have to be successful first before tax comes into play - you actually have to be able to operate,” he said.