The Taoiseach officially launched the Merit Medical expansion, opening a €20m IDA supported facility.

The medical devices company, Merit Medical, is in Galway since 1996 and currently employs 379 people.

Copperfasten Technologies was supported by Enterprise Ireland.

The extra 200 jobs in Merit Medical will bring the workforce to well over 500.

The jobs will be in research and development, operations support and manufacturing. Over one third are graduate positions.

Merit is a leading manufacturer of medical devices used mainly in the areas of cardiology, radiology and endoscopy.

The new €20m facility at Parkmore will be a designated centre of excellence for some of Merit’s new products and technologies.

IDA Chief, Barry O’Leary, said Merit was a key player in the cluster of medical device companies operating successfully from the West of Ireland.

Copperfasten Technologies

A further 37 new jobs are to be created at the Galway software firm Copperfasten Technologies.

The company is based in Salthill and currently, Galway Business Park,
Galway Ireland. Phone: +353 91 540054. Fax: +353 91 540055

Employs 15 people. The expansion is based on a €500,000 investment by Enterprise Ireland. The company produces Internet security solutions.

Copperfasten was founded in January 2000 by the original design team of the highly successful Alta Vista Firewall at Digital Equipment Corporation. Following the acquisition by Compaq and subsequent sale of the Alta Vista firewall to Raptor and then Symantec, the Galway based development team decided that it would pursue its own interests and formed Copperfasten Technologies.

While designing and developing the firewall over several years and many releases, the team witnessed the scaling down of firewall technologies. While the perimeter defense is intact, and the market for firewalls has matured, the technology has failed to many critical security issues. It is in this area which Copperfasten has focused its energies, specifically, the need to secure the enterprise not just from the packets themselves but also from the content of these packets. As such, a solid security strategy combines a perimeter firewall with one or more content firewalls for each of the main data types entering and leaving the organisation.

The first product released by the company in 2001, Copperfasten Intrusion Immunity, addressed the burgeoning area of website security

Copperfasten develops leading edge Internet Security products for international markets. The first product developed, Intrusion Immunity for Web Servers, was released 2001 and provides state of the art digital signatures, auto-remediation and several other advanced technologies for securing the corporate web presence. This was followed by the release of the sister products Immunity for Web Devices and Delegator.

In 2003, the company extended its offering to providing protection to additional critical applications. This has seen the release of the first in a series of application centric firewalls, the Mail Firewall Appliance, providing protection to corporate email services.

Copperfasten provides comprehensive solutions for global enterprises and government organizations.

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The independent, not-for-profit organisation will fill another 350 posts at facilities across the UK, Poland and in the Netherlands.

Rehab provides training, employment, health and social care and commercial services for 56,000 people each year, including the disabled and marginalised. The new posts will be in training, education, social care, IT, sales, management and administration.

Chief executive Angela Kerins said Rehab aims to support 75,000 people by 2015.

She said Rehab’s services were recognised internationally with proven results, adding that 90% of people who complete training courses in Ireland go on to further education, training or employment.

“Our overriding objective is to improve the lives of the people we support and to provide sustainable employment for our staff, both with and without disabilities,” she said.

The Rehab Group already employs 2,500 staff based in Ireland and another 1,000 in England, Scotland, Wales, Poland and the Netherlands. Another 115 jobs have been created on Rehab Group construction projects in Limerick, Portlaoise and Sligo.

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said a central part of the Government’s plan for jobs and growth is creating a powerful engine of indigenous enterprise.

“Yes, we must continue to attract world-class multinational companies, but we must also ensure that we have more Irish companies growing to scale, competing and succeeding in world markets, and creating more jobs,” he said.

“Rehab is an Irish organisation which had success in its original field, branched out into new sectors, competed and succeeded in export markets and created large-scale employment.”

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Four Irish entrepreneurs are pitching their ideas to angel investors, business mentors and start-up communities at an Investor Demo Day at Startupbootcamp Dublin headquarters in Dublin today.

Ten teams from Israel, US, Poland, Lithuania, China, Brazil, Romania and Ireland were selected from over 150 applications.

Themes for the inaugural accelerator programme included visualising and aggregating data; consumerising workplace IT and digitising transport.

Others involved ensuring developing technology is relevant for practical everyday usage including: smart medical technology for doctors on the go; an app to enhance road safety and technology to track traceability of perishable produce across the entire agricultural distribution chain.

Speaking at Investor Demo Day, Martin Kelly, IBM Venture Capital Group partner and main event sponsor said: “Startupbootcamp Dublin has developed some of the very best Irish and International entrepreneurial talent.  In addition to the international dimension, I’m really excited to find start-ups who are solving real problems.  Every team is addressing big markets and major challenges including car safety, food traceability, healthcare, and travel –the types of problems that our customers are interested in.”

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Today is an important line in the sand and an opportunity to look back on 20 years of frenetic activity as the internet emerged and grew in Ireland. Nothwithstanding doomed IPOs, frustrations with rolling out broadband and the ebb and flow of job creation, Ireland has emerged as one of the leading digital economies in Europe with some of the biggest names in the internet space choosing the country for their international headquarters.

As such, we thought we’d provide a timeline of the last 20 years of the internet. If we missed anything don’t hesitate to get in touch.

1992

• Barry Flanagan establishes Ireland On-Line in his house in Galway – Ireland’s first consumer-focused ISP is up and running

1994

• Netscape’s browser comes on the scene and the internet as we know it today is born

1995

• ISP Indigo launches on the Irish market

1996

• The Irish Internet Neutral Exchange (INEX) comes into being when Irish ISPs band together

1997

• Mergers and takeovers – An Post’s network division PostGem buys IrelandOnline for IR£2.5m and Eunet is bought by Esat Telecom for IR£3.2
• The Irish Internet Association (IIA) is established
• The Internet Service Provider Association of Ireland (ISPAI) is formed with Cormac Callanan as its first president
• Eircom enters the ISP business with Telecom Internet (Tinet)
• US President Bill Clinton and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern sign a strategic joint communiqué on e-commerce using a digital signature from Baltimore Technologies

1998

• Deregulation of the Irish telecoms market commences

1999

• NTL buys Cablelink for £538m; Global Crossing installs £70m hub at CityWest; An Post sells IrelandOnline and PostGem to Esat Telecom for £115m
• Esat Digifone unveils first iteration of mobile internet with WAP (wireless application protocol) services
• Digital Hub project unveiled to establish a digital quarter in Dublin’s Liberties district
• Eircom floats on Nasdaq. At this point the company is profitable, has no debts and employs 12,000 people

2000

• Draft E-commerce Bill published
• Dot.com meltdown begins in US – Europe and the rest of the world carry on regardless
• Some 23 data centres built in Dublin involving an investment of IR£500m

2001

• Eircom restructures multimedia division with loss of 5,000 jobs
• 9/11 tragedy in New York and Pennsylvania

2002

• Half of the 23 data centres in Dublin go out of business as ravages of dot.com downturn continue
• 3G licences awarded to O2, Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa
• As telecoms downturn rages, European telcos ask for return of €160bn worth of 3G licence fees; European Union says no

2003

• Commercial launch of 3G services by Vodafone

2004

• Google, eBay, Yahoo! select Dublin as a location for their respective European operations – Ireland begins to take centre stage in the internet world
• Facebook is born in a dorm room in Harvard University

2005

• Ryanair is named the most popular airline on the web by Google as www.ryanair.com continues to be the most-searched travel website in Europe
• MediaLab Europe, part of the prestigious Boston MIT, closes with the loss of 35 jobs and €35m in Government money; Amazon establishes European headquarters in Dublin

2006

• Vodafone, O2 and 3 reveal plans to launch HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) 3G broadband services, speeds up to 3.6MB available
• Ireland ends the year with 430,000 broadband subscribers
• Digiweb reveals plans to invest €8.5m in rolling out Metro broadband to 20 locations

2007

• Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone
• Bebo begins working with police forces to curb cyberbullying. Irishwoman Rachel O’Connell becomes head of internet safety at Bebo
• Magnet begins offering 12Mbps services
• Microsoft launches Windows 7
• Vodafone buys Irish ISP Perlico for €80m

2008

• Limerick brothers Patrick (19) and John (17) Collison become overnight millionaires when their start-up Auctomatic sells to Live Current for just under US$10m
• WordPress parent Auttomatic buys Sligo-based internet firm PollDaddy.com formed by David Lenehan and Eoin Gallagher
• Social network Facebook chooses Dublin for its European headquarters
• Magnet unveils 50Mbps fibre broadband service

2009

• Apple reaches 1bn apps milestone
• BT and Vodafone enter into joint venture – plan involves BT transferring its consumer and business ISP business to Vodafone and plan revealed to unbundle 58 new exchanges

2010

• Apple launches the first iPad
• Microsoft launches first Kinect sensor – welcome to the world of hands-free gaming
• Google embarks on a ‘Mobile First’ strategy
• Microsoft builds massive US$500m cloud data centre in west Dublin
• Google launches Street View in Ireland
• LinkedIn opens Dublin office
• Google creates 200 new jobs in Dublin at major new ops centre
• Dublin Web Summit brings Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, YouTube founder Chad Hurley, Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom and Bebo founder Michael Birch to Dublin

2011

• Twitter chooses Dublin for its international HQ
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seen strolling around Dublin
• LinkedIn creates an additional 100 jobs in Dublin
• Google locates major US$75m data centre in West Dublin
• Bioware locates major operation in Galway with 200 new jobs to support launch of online Star Wars game, The Old Republic

2012

• Eircom goes into Examinership with debts of €3.4bn, 5,000 employees
• Patrick and John Collison’s latest start-up Stripe earmarked as a potential US$1bn valuation company
• Government and major telecoms CEOs publish Next Generation Broadband Taskforce report
• Facebook IPO
• Rumours of an Apple television on the horizon

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Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin pushed for Ireland to get more money from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and from the EU‘s structural funds during meetings with the EIB yesterday.

Mr Howlin also met officials from the EU’s Irish bailout team and argued that half the money from the €3bn due to be raised from the sale of semi-state assets should be used “directly” for jobs projects. He wants the rest set aside in a “support account” to make it easier for Ireland to get private companies to co-invest in EIB projects.

The Government has pledged to privatise assets but has yet to raise a cent from sales. Mr Howlin said the EC/ECB/IMF troika hadn’t “signed off on” the plans to use more of the privatisation proceeds to support job creation, but said the Government had “very clear understandings” of support.

The efforts came as European policymakers rushed to embrace the “growth agenda” advocated first by France’s new president Francois Hollande and more recently by ECB chief Mario Draghi and Commission boss Jose Manuel Barroso.

As well as using EIB money to start additional projects, the Government is also hoping the EIB will “take over” some of the funding of the existing €17bn of Ireland’s capital programme, a measure that Mr Howlin said would improve Ireland’s “debt sustainability”.

The key to this is ensuring that much of the EIB loans are not added to the national debt.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan, who was also in Brussels yesterday, said the ‘off-balance sheet’ hope was “realistic”.

Mr Howlin and his officials also argued that tens of billions of unspent EU structural fund cash should be allocated by “competition” in a way that would favour countries with a good track record of using the funding such as Ireland.

“We made good progress on all fronts,” Mr Howlin told reporters. He expected the first funding to be granted later this year, for projects that could also be started later this year.

Both ministers declined to say how much funding they had sought, but Mr Howlin said they were hoping to restart “billions of euro” worth of projects while Mr Noonan said he’d “take whatever we can get” as long as it was not included in the national debt.

The ministers also declined to detail particular projects they had in mind. Mr Howlin said investment would go to projects such as schools, roads and primary healthcare centres that “feed into economic growth and have an immediate impact in terms of employment”.

It is understood that a “wish list” was submitted to EC and EIB officials.

A meeting of EU leaders next week may agree to increase the EIB’s own capital by €10bn after the EIB’s boss yesterday joined Mr Barroso in calling for a capital increase.

That increase would cost Ireland an extra €57m (as its share of the investment) but would make it easier for Ireland to get more EIB support.

Projects at the EIB are decided on a case-by-case basis. The EC may decide on the allocation of structural funds over the summer.

Mr Howlin also insisted that the Greek crisis would not derail the Government’s privatisation plans. “There is significant market interest,” adding that the first asset would be brought to market next year and would most likely be Bord Gais Energy.

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Tony McGuire, CEO of System Dynamics

One of Ireland’s oldest indigenous IT services companies System Dynamics plans to create 30 further jobs on the back of revenue growth in the UK market.

Over the past 12 months the company, which has its headquarters in Dublin, added 50 new positions to bring its total headcount to 170 people. By the end of this year it expects to hire 30 more people.

“While the new roles have been introduced across all functions of the business, the main reason for the increase has been the upsurge in the demand for Java and .Net developers,” said Tony McGuire, CEO of System Dynamics.

That demand is reflected in both the Irish and UK IT service business, McGuire said. Since its UK business was started in 2009, the company has built its revenue there to more than €2m to the end of 2011. It is anticipating further growth for this calendar year.

Last year, one of its major customer wins was a 12-month contract with Pernod Ricard in the UK, using experience gained in Ireland’s distribution sector to land the deal.

System Dynamics is implementing a tailored JDE implementation, providing Pernod Ricard with an integrated solution for financials, sales, procurement and inventory, while also integrating it with the drinks maker’s other back-office systems.

In its home market, McGuire has said the company has benefited from a growing trend towards flexible framework agreements in the public and private sectors. In these cases, pre-qualified lists of vendors replace old-style single-supplier tenders for IT projects as organisations look to get better value from IT deals and reduce their reliance on a single provider.

Originally established in 1968, System Dynamics has amassed a client list spanning central government and agencies, local government and the semi-state sector. It has private-sector clients in banking and insurance, utilities, pharma, oil and gas, manufacturing, distribution and transport.

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Up to 100 new jobs will be created in Cork over the next three years by new private health insurance company Laya Healthcare.

The company, which took over the business of Quinn Healthcare, already employs more than 340 people at Little Island in Co. Cork.

Laya, which stands for Looking After You Always, is a new name in the private health insurance market, although most of the senior management have been involved in the organisation since it was first launched here as BUPA Ireland 15 years ago.

Ten years later it was taken over by the Quinn Group, and last December senior management led a buy-out of the business.

Laya Healthcare has 450,000 members, making it the second biggest player in the private health insurance market in this country.

The company said the 100 new jobs on offer will be in the areas of sales, claims and customer service.

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Entrepreneurs throughout Ireland are invited to pitch their big business ideas to a panel of esteemed judges and the winning pitch will receive the hugely beneficial prize of top level telecommunications, advertising, public relations and legal advice to the value of €50,000.

The competition invites Irish-based start-ups with innovative ideas to give a three-minute pitch of their big idea.

O2′s parent Telefonica has announced the launch in Ireland of its global technology accelerator programme, Wayra, marking a multi-million Euro investment by Telefónica in Irish-based start-ups.

Wayra, which means ‘wind’ in Quechua, a language of the central Andes, is part of Telefonica’s new global Digital unit and is set to become the world’s largest technology accelerator programme. Launched last year in Latin America and Spain, Wayra has been created to find and nurture the best technology ideas and talent around the world, aiming to become an accelerator for the development of future ‘Silicon Valleys’ in the countries where Telefónica is present.