ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

10 ■ THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
and today there are 30,000 people employed in fi nancial services and ancillary support
activities in the IFSC. Dublin is now a center for international banking, funds
management, and insurance, and the sector continues to grow despite the international
fi nancial crisis.
In 1997, the CHDDA was subsumed into the Dublin Docklands Development
Authority (DDDA) with a broader mandate to promote the development of the
entire Dublin docklands area consisting of 520 hectares. Since the DDDA’s inception
in 1997, the area under its control has attracted more than €3.35 billion of
public and private investment and has seen the creation of 40,000 new jobs. Th e
number of residents in the area has grown from 17,500 to 22,000, and 11,000 new
homes have been built, of which 2,200 are either social or aff ordable. In addition,
the area has developed as a vibrant cultural center with a new theater and a new
concert venue.
In 2003, as part of a further urban regeneration initiative, the government
formed the Digital Hub Development Agency, an Irish state agency, to establish
a digital hub in the historic Liberties area of the city. Its role is to provide incubator
space and support for largely indigenous, small and medium-size enterprises
while promoting the broader social and economic regeneration of the area. It
currently houses more 90 such enterprises developing products ranging from
mobile apps to online games.
Dublin, as the major urban center in the country, had always attracted a signifi
cant share of FDI into Ireland. By the mid-1990s, it was already attracting
major investments from an impressive range of international companies, including
Intel, Microsoft , Oracle, IBM, and SAP, as well as major fi nancial institutions
such as Citicorp, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC. (See fi gure 1.1.) IDA
Ireland recognized that this established track record, combined with the exciting
urban redevelopment of the city core, provided the opportunity to promote
Dublin as a “talent hub” that would attract the web-based knowledge industries
of the future as well as encourage the existing technology and fi nancial services
companies already established there to deepen their investment and add more
knowledge-based activities.
To succeed with this endeavor, it was evident that Dublin would need to
have state-of-the-art data interconnectivity with the rest of the world. While this
would be largely supplied by the private sector, it was clear that some pump priming
would be needed, so IDA Ireland sought and received government funding
to invest in a project, called Global Crossing, that connected Ireland to the transatlantic
fi ber network between the United Kingdom and the United States and
thus to the rest of the world. Th is made Dublin a credible location for investment
projects that require the speedy and secure transmission of high volumes of data
at a competitive cost.