One of the largest US financial institutions operating in the Republic plans to double its staff numbers here to 1,400 over the next three to five years.
Gerald Hassell, president of the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, which employs 500 people in the IFSC in Dublin and 200 in Cork, said that the bank would increase its workforce in both cities.
However, Mr Hassell was cautious over the shortage of skilled financial staff in Dublin and over EU proposals to harmonise corporate taxes across Europe, which would raise the Irish rate.
"We like the tax rate and it is certainly a motivator to increase our operations here," said Mr Hassell, who has been president of the bank since 1998.
He said that before the bank decided to expand in any country it looked at the availability of skilled financial staff, the corporate tax regime and the regulatory environment.
"Our clients are here for a reason, just like we are here for a reason. We are, particularly in financial markets, truly operating in a global community. We can do business anywhere in the world."
He was not concerned about harmonisation of EU corporate taxes, but said if this happened it would "enter into our thinking" on whether the bank would expand its operations here.
"This happens to be one of the higher growth markets for us. We would all like to keep it that way."
Mr Hassell said the shortage of financial staff was a problem for fund administrators in the IFSC.
"With us growing here - and the other financial services companies growing in the marketplace - there is not enough depth of talent of employees for us to hire, so we tend to hire from each other, which is not good, so you can't keep as stable a workforce as you would like."
Bank of New York and AIB were originally joint partners in the IFSC-based fund administration company. The US bank bought out AIB's 50 per cent in the company this time last year. Bank of New York merged with Mellon Financial Corporation in December, creating the world's largest asset management firm. It administers funds of more than $300 billion (€212 billion) in the IFSC.
Mr Hassell said it would take some time for the turmoil in the global financial markets to ease. He said that the crisis in US sub-prime mortgages was caused by the market getting "too greedy".
