When IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland release their 1999 figures some time next year, they will look pretty much like last year's. Most observers will give a contented little sigh, and forget about them. But behind the bare statistics lie a different message: the Republic's industrial strategy is now right in the middle of a fundamental transformation.
The job totals will be good. IDA Ireland grant-aided an amazing 16,000 new jobs in 1998, and executives there are quietly confident they will be there or thereabouts for 1999 too. Net jobs growth will also be close to the 1998 level of 8,800. Enterprise Ireland will weigh in with its own chapter of the long-running success story.
The past year has held its delights, and its disappointments. There was Xerox's 1,300-job expansion; Medtronics' announcement it will hire 1,000 in Galway; and the non-stop recruitment in the tech sector. But there was the slow-motion trauma of Fruit of the Loom and the 1,000 it let go; the 400 P45s at Avon in Portar lington, Co Laois; and the Sword of Damocles that hung over Apple's manufacturing operations in Cork - when it finally fell, 450 got their cards.
But half way through the year, the IDA's new chief executive, Mr Sean Dorgan, made it clear his agency was moving rapidly in a new direction. The Republic, he said, should no longer measure its success merely by the number of gross jobs created, but by the regional spread and the quality of that employment.
The IDA's new focus specifically aims to deliver more than half of all new jobs from future greenfield projects into the Objective 1 (Border, Midlands and West counties designated for maximum EU grant aid) regions.
Enterprise Ireland is singing from the same hymn sheet. Its chief executive, Mr Dan Flinter, has restructured its operations, and its budget, and now aims to provide a one-stop-shop of expert services to indigenous companies, with particular focus on high-potential start-up firms.
Enterprise Ireland also publicly set itself the target of doubling the sales of its client companies within a decade, from €25 billion (£19.7 billion) to €50 billion (£39.4 billion).
One crucial element of industrial strategy remaining outside the control of both agencies was infrastructure. Throughout the year, the pressure mounted on the Government to spend unprecedented sums on the Republic's shoddy road network and other crucial infrastructure. In November, the Cabinet approved a plan to devote €51.6 billion on a co-ordinated, seven-year plan.
The Government also put its money where its mouth was on electronic commerce. It agreed to underwrite a €76 million high-speed, high-capacity telecommunications cable to the US and Europe, allowing electronic commerce companies to transmit huge volumes of data at a reasonable cost.
Some analysts said the move was an inspired one. They saw it as a huge declaration of intent - the modern-day equivalent of the IDA's 1970s strategy of buying up industrial land and presenting multinational investors with ready-made factories.
Electronic commerce now represents a cornerstone of industrial strategy, and this early faith has already been rewarded; in the last 10 weeks alone, Novell, Oracle and ICL have between them announced close to 1,000 new jobs in e-commerce.
This burgeoning sector contrasts with the bleak outlook for more traditional industries, such as clothing and textiles, where lower wage costs in developing countries are attracting many manufacturers. The IDA's view is not just that it should roll with the punches, but that it should embrace the change.
"There is no option," one executive said this week. "A company that misses the e-commerce boat will lose out in a major way, like the companies that missed out on selling to the European Union. If you decide e-commerce is not for you, you are living in a dreamworld."
A constant fear for policy-makers is that the current boom will prove unsustainable, that the economy will be unable to supply enough skilled workers to feed demand.
A relative scarcity of software engineers - companies willing to pay market rates have little trouble recruiting - remains an issue in the economy. But industry insiders say several factors are now boosting supply.
Firstly, over the next two years, several thousand technology students will graduate from the extra courses set up by the Government. Secondly, a veritable army of "Y2K millennium bomb" specialists will be available from work - in theory at least - from January 1st. Thirdly, despite the high cost of housing and other quality-of-life issues, many skilled Irish and foreign people are re-locating here from abroad.
There is another, unpublicised foundation block of the new Irish industrial strategy. While Ministers, in particular the Tanaiste Ms Harney, have been relentless in their encouragement of individual citizens to upgrade their skills, the IDA has targeted managers.
"It is very easy for a manager of a plant in Ireland to keep head office happy, keep hitting the targets, but not do much else. The big challenge is to move the operation here up the corporate value chain," an IDA source said this week.
The agency now devotes half its time to running development programmes for Irish managers. These men and women are encouraged to go to headquarters and persuade the corporation to add a research and development facility, or to make the Irish operations a centre for certain functions. The IDA backs such endeavours to the hilt, with formal guarantees of resources.
This strategy saves the Government money, time and effort. It means that to sustain the current level of employment, development agencies require fewer grants and less world travel.
It also means that over a period the workforce in companies based in the Republic should become more and more skilled, and play a role closer to the heart of operations. Under these circumstances, with quite deep roots in the State, it becomes far more difficult for even a large multinational to simply switch off the lights in a facility and walk away.
One executive summed up the shift in policy thus: "If you want sustainable growth, you need to manage change."
Sean Mac Carthaigh is at can be contacted at smaccarthaigh@irish-times.ie
