Export-focused Irish-owned companies which remain headquartered here are economic pillars in every town and village across the country and are key drivers in the Irish economy, last year making a spend of almost €40bn in the local economy.

Results published last week showed that direct employment at companies supported by Enterprise Ireland increased to a record 234,454 in 2024. Throughout last year, Irish companies which Enterprise Ireland is proud to work with created 15,741 new jobs, with almost two-thirds (64pc) of these new jobs located around the country, outside of Dublin.

There was a net increase of 6,212 jobs, with employment increasing across Enterprise Ireland’s three core economic sectors in 2024; Technology & Services (+2pc), Industrial and Life Sciences (+3pc) and Food and Sustainability (+3pc). Particularly strong employment growth was delivered by companies in the Climate, Sustainability and Agritech sub-sectors, which increased by 8pc.

These positive results are a testament to the capabilities, resilience and growth ambition of Irish companies and are an encouraging start to 2025, notwithstanding the ever-changing operating environment with potential challenges on the horizon including global uncertainty, increased business costs, and climate change, among others.

It is with great pride that Enterprise Ireland started this new business year by last week presenting these positive and encouraging results from our clients, who continue to show immense spirit, innovation and agility as they navigated the challenges and embraced the opportunities which last year brought.

In order to remain competitive, we believe Irish businesses need to continue to be agile and ready to diversify. Irish companies can, and will be, the prime driver of our economy with their strong leadership and ability to innovate, adapt and embrace new technologies to evolve and grow being critical to achieving that position.

One such example is Galway-based company Aerogen, Enterprise Ireland’s largest medtech company, which last week announced a planned transformational €300m investment and will lead to the creation of 725 new jobs.

Supporting ambitious businesses like Aerogen is strongly aligned with Enterprise Ireland’s ambition to make Irish-owned companies the primary driver of our economy. We have been proud to support Aerogen throughout its journey over the last 25 years and look forward to working with them as they continue to grow.

2024 also marked the final year of Enterprise Ireland’s three-year strategy ‘Leading in a Changing World’, and we are proud that Enterprise Ireland- backed client companies have substantially exceeded our key targets to create 45,000 new jobs by 2024 and increase exports to €30bn.

Over the three-year period Enterprise Ireland client companies created 50,931 new jobs and at the end of 2023, over €34bn in exports was recorded..

During that period we also supported 479 new start-up businesses seeding the next generation of scaling Irish businesses.

The results announced last week are a really strong platform on which to further grow and expand Ireland’s enterprise base in a sustainable way over the next five years.

Global enterprise will of course continue to face challenges and disruption over the months and years ahead, but it will also bring opportunities and Irish companies are well-positioned to capitalise on those opportunities.

Enterprise Ireland is committed to supporting Irish-owned businesses to start, grow and scale, and we look forward to continuing to work with our clients on their journey to achieve their global ambition, providing a platform for strong economic growth.

Kevin Sherry is an Executive Director at Enterprise Ireland