Uitgelicht: de Ierse economie (en)

Ireland has made great strides in recovering from the impact of the global economic and financial crisis. We continue to make steady and sustained progress in restoring economic and financial stability.

The Irish economy returned to economic growth in 2011, driven by rising exports and enhanced competitiveness. We are steadily reducing our public deficit, and are on track to meet our target deficit (of less than 3%) by 2015. We have recapitalised our banks on time, and below the expected cost.

To date we have met or exceeded all the targets in the €85 billion EU/IMF Programme for Ireland, including all quantitative fiscal targets. Over 160 commitments in the Programme have been fulfilled on time.

Our economic progress has been underpinned by our national strategy for growth and job creation: we seek to provide the best and most attractive environment for businesses to establish themselves and create jobs. We firmly believe that the same logic applies for Europe - hence the theme of our EU Presidency: stability, jobs and growth.

Our economic progress has been underpinned by our national strategy for growth and job creation.

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  Find on our website more detailed information about the Irish economy
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  View a video below from Enterprise Ireland about Irish business success stories
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  Read more about the example of one Irish start-up company which is having a global impact, thanks to some help from the European Space Agency

CASE STUDY

Ireland and the EU innovating together: Altobridge

How did one Irish start-up become recognised as a technology pioneer? With some help from the European Space Agency (ESA) combined with a lot of its own innovation.

Altobridge was founded in 2002 by Irish entrepreneur Mike Fitzgerald to develop a cost-effective way for airline passengers to use their mobile phones on commercial aircraft. Up until then, on-board mobile phone use was either non-existent or prohibitively expensive.

From there, the company explored and expanded into other ‘remote’ market segments such as merchant maritime vessels, enabling crew members to use their mobile phones while out at sea. Then in 2007, Altobridge deployed its first land-based systems which brought GSM mobile phone connectivity - over satellite - for the first time to remote communities across Malaysian Borneo.

In 2007, Altobridge was approached by Enterprise Ireland to consider applying for assistance from the European Space Agency (ESA). With ESA’s valuable input, Altobridge further enhanced its R&D output, with the addition of new features such as local call switching and the intelligent handover of calls to other nodes on mobile networks.

“ESA support is fundamental from an Irish R&D perspective. It helps us to be cost competitive while also providing us with invaluable access to a depth and breadth of expertise within ESA,” Lord says.

To date, the Altobridge lite-site™ solution has been deployed throughout Asia and Africa and more widely, including in Iraq, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Solomon Islands, Ghana and Niger. The company employs 140 staff with offices in Ireland, USA, China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

In its latest breakthrough, Altobridge has taken its learning and experience in the mobile voice market and applied the same principles to the mobile broadband data market.

“Mobile data consumption has doubled every year for the past 5 years and this rate of growth is forecast to continue annually for the foreseeable future. Urban mobile networks are struggling to keep pace with this demand. Our Data-at-the-Edge™ solution eases network congestion for mobile operators in high-footfall, busy, urban networks and therefore has particular relevance for European mobile operators”, says Richard Lord, Chief Technology Officer at Altobridge.

Already, Altobridge has been recognised for its efforts, following in the footsteps of the likes of Google and Twitter by being recognised as a 2012 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, and winning the Wireless Category in the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards 2011.

“ESA support is fundamental from an Irish R&D perspective. It helps us to be cost competitive while also providing us with invaluable access to a depth and breadth of expertise within ESA,” Lord says.