Let's ensure Intel's faith in Irish economy is well founded

When I heard this week on the news: "the Intel corporation has announced . . .", my mind raced ahead, completing the sentence ". . . a loss of 500 jobs at its plant at Leixlip". The real thing was the opposite, and more so - 1,000 new jobs - but even I, not a believer in the Celtic Big Bang crash theory, had begun subliminally to expect the Big Bad News some day.

With a $2 billion (€2.09 billion) decision for Leixlip, Co Kildare, Intel has kept the big bang in the realm of theory, while the facts are the construction of a new manufacturing plant and the hiring of new people.

This is very instructive on a number of fronts.

Confidence: this is a mission-critical event for Intel. Its leading edge 0.13 micron technology is being rolled out first in two identical investments at its plants in New Mexico and Ireland. The new technology is to cut manufacturing costs per wafer by 30 per cent. The corporation would not risk this at a site where it could not hire people with required skill levels and where the facilities could not be built in time.

Intel is not theorising about the Irish economy. It has no interest in that. But while stockbroking analysts and fund managers fret about putting, say, €50 million (£63.5 million) into Irish stocks because of theoretical worries, Intel blasts ahead with a $2 billion investment.

Competition: we read that Ireland won this over Israel, where Intel has another of its manufacturing plants. Indeed. Four years ago, its plant in Qiryat Gat was built to manufacture with 0.18 micron technology at a cost of $1.6 billion, $600 million of which was supplied by the Israeli government. That puts the Republic's total of €110 million invested in Intel in Leixlip in context, as it does the EU's restrictions on State aids outside the Border-Midlands-West region. But we cannot forget that Intel has been in Israel since 1974 and conducts a considerable amount of its research and development of new products in Haifa, an activity that does not take place in Ireland.

Israel is no loser in Intel's world. Nor is Ireland. We should integrate with the pattern of development of companies like Intel, which tackles the not-so-easy job of co-ordination of multiple facilities around the world. So, rather than beating Israel, how do people fly from Haifa to Dublin - or to Leixlip?

Speed: Intel makes fast microprocessors, takes decisions fast and builds new plant fast - 15 months for a $2 billion facility in this case. The contrast with the slow pace of decision-making and implementation for most infrastructure in the Republic is stark, especially when the amount of money involved per project could be 100 times less. Agreed, one is public sector, the other private, but there must be management lessons to be learned. It also shows the benign, fundamentally positive and energising effect of the profit motive.

People: it is not just ironic, but deeply instructive for our national worriers, that Intel can take a view that the jobs can be filled in the Republic, that the skills shortage here is no worse than elsewhere, especially when so much is at stake for it.

Immigration can work. Maybe Intel will be proven wrong, but let us not help, in our public policy, to prove it wrong.

Tax: the issue of lowering the top rate of income tax cannot be avoided if we want to attract top knowledge-workers, Irish and others, to work here and sustain high value-added industry. It would be a failure of vision and nerve if this were to be bogged down in the politics of the rich, the poor and the ordinary worker.

The answer is to do both: help the poor and the lower paid and lower the top rate of tax too, but for entirely separate reasons.

Refresh rate: this is the flicker on the TV or computer screen. The faster a new picture is built, the less the flicker and the less the soreness of your eyes. It's the same in manufacturing and business. We cannot stick with "what we have, we hold". Intel and many other businesses need constant new development. Someday, perhaps soon, its present manufacturing process at Leixlip will be obsolete. If it did not build new processes there, the facility and the jobs would die.

It is not a choice for us to say, we have enough jobs, thank you Intel, don't congest Co Kildare with more houses and roads now.

Constant development at a fast refresh rate means survival.

Ireland's industrial, tax, infrastructure and every other policy must be aligned with that reality. It can't be right for us to want growth industries, while wishing for sedentary national growth rates as an alternative to addressing the challenges of growth.

The Intel decision is a great one for Leixlip and for the island of Ireland. The real test will be to prove it is a great one for Intel too.