THE GOVERNMENT plans to host a major international conference in September aimed at encouraging the diaspora to play a role in helping the Irish economy to recover.
Senior business figures in the Irish-American, Irish-British communities and other diaspora communities are expected to be invited to the Global Irish Economic Forum to meet indigenous business leaders.
“The primary purpose of the forum will be to examine how the Irish, at home and abroad, can work together to generate ideas which will contribute to our overall efforts at economic recovery,” said Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin yesterday.
He said the global Irish community had in the past worked closely with the Government to tackle issues such as the Northern Ireland peace process. The forum would provide an opportunity to take Ireland’s relationship with this community in a new direction, said Mr Martin, who expects about 120 delegates.
“Now is the time to shape a more strategic relationship which will bring benefits both to Ireland and to our global community and which has a more developed economic focus,” said Mr Martin, on the fringes of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.
The Government’s decision to reach out to the diaspora mirrors a similar tactic employed by IDA Ireland during the 1980s and 1990s. It successfully targeted Irish-American business executives to attract US multinational companies.
