Ireland mobilises the diaspora to ramp up recovery

DUBLIN (Reuters): Corporate leaders mixed with actors and comedians in Dublin on Friday as the cream of Ireland's diaspora gathered to discuss ways of accelerating their homeland's recovery and rebuild its reputation after a devastating financial crisis.

The chief executive of International Airlines Group (IAG) , Willie Walsh, joined Hollywood actor Gabriel Byrne and nearly 300 other delegates for the two-day Global Irish Economic Forum, a Davos-style conference held in the plush surroundings of Dublin Castle.

"I'm here to listen and learn," Paul McGuinness, the manager of Irish rock group U2, told reporters as he headed into the forum.

"My own clients aside, we travel the world and know how many smart Irish people there are scattered around, I'm sure they can be motivated to help with what needs to be done here in many different ways."

Ireland's government wants delegates to use their influence to help the country build on its fragile recovery following a property market collapse and EU-IMF bailout.

"We are mobilising people with Irish connections who are of Irish heritage and who are leaders in the corporate world to help us in our efforts to bring about economic recovery and to get investments and jobs into this country," Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore said.

"The kind of people who will open doors for us and the kind of people who will help us tilt investment decisions in Ireland's direction to ensure that jobs are created here."

A veteran of Europe's financial crisis, Ireland has won plaudits from international investors for meeting its targets under its EU-IMF bailout and unlike fellow euro zone strugglers Greece and Portugal, its economy is expected to return to growth this year, led by its export-sector.

But the recovery is fragile and dependent on an uncertain global outlook.

Around 70 million people worldwide claim Irish descent, nearly 11 times the island's current population, after huge waves of emigration, mainly to the United States and Britain, in the 19th century following a famine in 1845. Mass emigration continued well into the twentieth century.

After a lull during the boom years of the "Celtic Tiger" economy, Irish people are leaving again in their thousands, this time mainly to Australia and Canada, to find work overseas.



The Irish diaspora in the United States played an influential role in helping to end a decades-long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland in 1998 and Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), said on Friday they could help with the economic recovery.



"This can be a very, very positive development ... If there is follow-up, if there is proper networking," Adams, now an opposition lawmaker in the Republic's lower house of parliament, told reporters.



"We have such a global spread of the Irish and they obviously have a great love for Ireland, they wouldn't be coming here if they didn't."



In 2009, Ireland's previous government created a virtual "Global Irish Network" to help it network overseas and Gilmore said the current administration planned to formalise this network's overseas chapters.



The government is launching a website for the Irish community overseas and said on Friday it would start an annual awards programme for members of the diaspora who give "sustained and distinguished service to Ireland".