Enda Kenny promotes Irish business in Lyons

It was the sort of trip Taoiseach Enda Kenny loves, filled with wizardry and widgetry from Irish companies who have pioneered sewage-eating bacteria and James Bond-like digital vehicle tracking systems.

If there was a shadow over Mr Kenny's official visit to France, it was the omnipresent migration crisis, which he discussed with president Francois Hollande on Thursday and Gérard Collomb, the prominent senator and socialist mayor of Lyons, on Friday. How many migrants will Ireland take? The Taoiseach was questioned at every turn.

The number could well surpass 1,800, Mr Kenny admitted on the sidelines of a breakfast organised by Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Embassy. EU officials talk of asylum for 100,000; the UN would prefer 200,000. "We may well run into very substantial numbers," he said of the overall European intake.

In response to prime minister Viktor Orban’s assertion that Hungary’s “Christian roots” are threatened by Muslim refugees, Mr Kenny noted that freedom of movement is a founding principle of the EU, “irrespective of colour or creed”.

At breakfast on the top floor of the Sofitel, with a panoramic view over the Rhône river and Lyons, Mr Kenny witnessed the signing of Franco-Irish contracts totalling €5 million.

“My presence here is to give witness to opportunities in the Lyons region,” the Taoiseach said. Fifteen Irish companies will visit Lyons on a trade mission in November.

Sewage treatment

Tricel, from Killarney, Co Kerry, makes sewage treatment plants for buildings not connected to public systems. Bacteria that live in three-chambered tanks eat the waste and die, managing director Mike Stack explained. Tricel produces the tanks at a factory in Poitiers.

“More than five million homes in France are not connected – that’s 50 per cent of the European market,” Mr Stack said.

Wood Energy Solutions, which makes boilers fuelled by wood pellets, signed deals with French, Swiss and Spanish firms. Enterprise Ireland had invited the small company from Cahir, Co Tipperary, to a trade show in Saint-Étienne in 2013.

"We dipped our toe in the French market at that exhibition and met our French and Swiss partners," said technical director Declan Crosse.

Derek Bryan, vice-president for sales at Fleetmatics, met the Taoiseach when he inaugurated the company's Tallaght headquarters in 2012.

Fleetmatics is “the fasted growing software company in vehicle tracking globally,” Mr Bryan says. Its technology keeps constant watch on the maintenance, location, speed and fuel levels of fleets of vehicles.

Fleetmatics purchased the French company Ornicar in Grenoble last February. It is a growth sector; at 15 per cent, French market penetration is much lower than Britain's 30-40 per cent, because French drivers object to the idea of "Big Brother" watching them.

Mayor Collomb welcomed the Taoiseach in the city’s magnificent 17th-century town hall, where oil paintings, chandeliers, parquet floors and silk jacquard wall hangings bear witness to the fortune that Lyons built on silk and textiles. Today, Mayor Collomb said, it is a leader in life sciences, green and digital technology.

Though Mr Collomb is nominally a socialist, he is allied with the economically liberal, reformist wing of the party, and like Mr Kenny he is gung-ho on business.

The Taoiseach briefed Mr Collomb on his discussion of the migration crisis and the COP 21 climate conference with president Hollande. They talked about the Irish recovery, their mutual desire to fight youth unemployment, French debt and the need for labour-market reform in France. Mr Collomb said he found the Taoiseach “very warm and straightforward and very engaged”.

Like an ordinary tourist

As the mayor and the Taoiseach surveyed the Place des Terreaux from the town hall balcony, Mr Kenny took a photograph of a fountain sculpted by Auguste Bartholdi, the creator of the Statue of Liberty, with his iPhone, like an ordinary tourist.

Mr Kenny invited Mr Collomb to tag along with president Hollande when he visits Dublin next summer. And would he ever bring a business delegation with him?