Announcement of 150 Jobs at SAS Institute’s Multilingual Inside Sales Centre in Dublin

SAS has been a remarkable success story since its founding at North Carolina State University, and I understand it is now the world’s largest privately owned software business.

Ireland is delighted to have SAS as part of its growing digital community. The company employs close to 14,000 staff worldwide, with 400 offices in 56 countries, and with revenues of €3 billion.

Software Sector in Ireland
SAS will be expanding along with our thriving software sector, with 9 of the top 10 companies now having operations here.

Our reputation as a centre of software excellence is unrivalled in Europe.

We are home to over 900 software companies, including both multinational and indigenous firms, employing 24,000 people and generating €16 billion of exports annually.

We have seen the development of a significant cohort of Irish companies with world beating products helped to a considerable extent by the multinational companies who have chosen to locate here.  

Skills
We have put a lot of building blocks in place to create the right conditions for companies like SAS.

We have ensured that Ireland is currently achieving a large increase in graduate output from third level ICT courses, driven in part by Government Actions under the ICT Action Plan.

The revised plan will see an additional 1,250 undergraduate placements made available annually, aimed at ensuring that three quarters of job openings can be filled from the Irish education system by 2018.

I understand that SAS is working closely with the third level sector in Ireland to develop the skills required for data analytics, a field that is growing in importance.

By making Ireland a choice destination for data analytics we can attract in more exciting investment opportunities and find new ways to use data to improve public and private sector efficiency.  

Economic Recovery
These are just some of the many ways we are working to secure economic recovery in Ireland.
We have rejected the policies of boom and bust and are instead rebuilding a sustainable, enterprise led economy with sustainable jobs.

The fruit of this success has been the significant reduction in unemployment since we launched our Action Plan for Jobs.
 
There are over 125,000 extra people at work since its launch in 2012.

Unemployment now stands at 9.5% having fallen from a high of over 15% in 2012. This is a fantastic result and is helping to get many lives back on track.

Every region of the country and virtually every sector of the economy are showing growth.

Last year our economy grew by 5.2%, Europe’s fastest.  

This growth has continued into 2015 and Ireland is again forecast to be the EU’s fastest growing economy this year.

A major challenge for the Government when we came into office has been to get our public finances under control.

Sensible and prudent management of the public finances is now a pre-requisite for a stable, growing economy.

We will not tolerate a short term ‘if I have it, I’ll spend it’ approach to the public finances.

That is why the Government will be maintaining its prudent approach to the upcoming Budget and will not be departing from the fiscal framework outlined in the Spring Economic Statement.

This type of economic management has helped to restore our international reputation which has also helped to secure multinational investment and jobs

As a result we are ranked in first place in IBM’s Global Locations Trend report due to our success in attracting high quality FDI activities in research and development, life sciences and IT, in addition to high-value investment in financial services.

Ireland also still retains its rank on the Forbes ‘Best Countries for Business’ list.

But there is no room for complacency.
We in Government are working hard to make Ireland one of the best places in the world to do business, and we will continue to try and make the country as attractive as possible.

And on that note I would like to conclude by congratulating SAS on this great announcement, and by wishing you every success with your expansion.

I look forward to watching your progress in the coming years.