New York Times takes a different view on Ireland

Chastened perhaps, by its recent portrayal of Ireland as a country where people kill pigeons in order to survive, The New York Times has returned with a more favourable portrait of the country, this time of the local tech scene.

Describing the Grand Canal Docks as a "kind of home away from home for the big Silicon Valley companies like Google and Facebook" the article recognises Ireland's "inventive scrappiness" in trying to position itself as a start-up hub.

Pointing to a 28 per cent drop in venture capital investment in the first nine months of 2013 however, it notes that Ireland’s startup scene is “still relatively small” compared with other European hubs like London and Stockholm.

The article also bemoans the difficulty in trying to hire well-qualified Irish engineers and developers, quoting Petter Made, a Swedish co-founder of the payments startup SumUp, who says that the company’s 35-person Dublin based team includes just “a few Irish developers”.

However, it also notes Ireland’s relative success wooing international entrepreneurs to start local companies through its program of grants and tax breaks, citing the example of Australian Brett Meyers, who co-founded CurrencyFair, a low-cost foreign currency startup. He had a one-year plan to stay in Ireland, but never left.