BILL CLINTON came through for Ireland yesterday, big time. Who else could have brought together two dozen of America’s wealthiest men to talk about a cash-strapped island?
“When he makes a call to a CEO, they take the call,” said George Moore, an Irish technology millionaire who attended the two-hour, closed door session. “Isn’t it fantastic that the president is using his office and his reputation to assist a small country?”
A participant said the meeting, around a large, round table at New York University, was “like an interactive boardroom meeting”. Heavy hitters included Brian Moynihan, the chief executive of Bank of America, Robert Rubin, the former treasury secretary and former chief executive of Citigroup, and Wilbur Ross, the private equity investor who helped recapitalise Bank of Ireland.
“The mark of president Clinton and his wife on Ireland is now indelible,” Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, having “stood by his word” by organising the investment conference he promised last October in Dublin Castle.
“As president, Bill Clinton drove the key [Irish] national agenda of reconciliation,” said Kieran McLoughlin, president of the American Ireland Fund. “Now he is driving the current agenda of recovery.” Mr Clinton too was generous with praise. “I can tell all of you that this array of leaders made the case very well,” he said, gesturing to Mr Kenny, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton.
The investors had been impressed by “the fact that they have a coalition government, where people reach across party lines to get things done,” Mr Clinton said.
There was “money in the banks”, Mr Clinton noted. “Trillions, just in America, in American companies ... Now is the time to invest in Ireland, where property is a steal and you’ve got the best educated workforce and everybody is all dressed up with no place to go.”
In his closing remarks, the Taoiseach refused to join those in Ireland “in troughs of despondency and despair”. Asked to elaborate, Mr Kenny said, “I’m not pessimistic by nature. Week after week, I hear very little evidence by the opposition parties of the confidence expressed by international leaders.”