Declan Murphy

My early career was far removed from ICT and, indeed, from a vision on life direction. Emigrating to London in 1958 at 15 years age (to my parents’ dismay and I could pass for 17!) I worked night shifts in food factories with mostly Irish and Jamaican co-workers. I returned to Ireland after two years and luckily found work in a wood products factory and later with the Irish Tourist Association in Dublin. Like many of my generation I became a scrimping ‘night student’ doing both the Leaving Certificate and a commerce degree at UCD while working full time. I joined Bord Fáilte in 1963 (led by Director General Tim O’Driscoll who brought a whole new professional approach to tourism marketing and standards) and spent some years dealing with tourist events and infrastructure and then hotel development and investment. It was an exciting period of new hotels (e.g. Jurys, Doyles, Intercontinental) investment and enterprise in the sector.

Then the new Industrial Development Authority (IDA) advertised for staff. It had a clear mandate of action with domestic and international firms and in all regions. It was headed by Michael Killeen (formerly general manager of Córas Tráchtála), who came in 1969 and brought a dynamism and results-driven approach to all its operations. I applied and joined the agency at the same time.

In my first post as ‘project executive’ in the food and drink section I shared an office with future IDA managing director Kieran McGowan. We reported to Dr. Bill Brosnan, an economist who had recently come from the Confederation of Irish Industries, and to Dr. Fred Hall at board level. Other new sectoral teams were established in engineering, electrical and electronics, textiles, clothing and footwear, chemicals and healthcare, leisure and consumer goods, plastics, packaging, wood and furniture. The aim was to build better sectoral knowledge and relationships with companies.

The total staff of the IDA was approximately 70 people. Some had transferred from the civil service and others were recruited from outside. Staff numbers would rapidly grow in following years as IDA expanded in regions in Ireland and in overseas offices.

The IDA encouraged its younger employees to learn by practical experience in a range of industries and projects. I worked in food and drink, textiles and clothing, consumer goods and in later years in the engineering and automotive and international service sectors. I became a typical IDA project officer who met and presented to potential investors, took them around the country for site visits and then sought to conclude plans to start up in Ireland. Sometimes this process involved multiple visits to Ireland or to clients overseas and could extend over many months or even years. IDA provided extensive training and had a culture of freedom to take initiatives.

In the 1960s the old IDA had established one man offices in Germany, France, UK and USA. Expanding these and adding new overseas offices was a major step in the 1970s. Because I spoke some German, the agency asked me to move to Köln in 1973. I spent most of the 1970s, seeking new investment in Ireland.

John O’Sullivan had been the sole IDA representative in Germany until 1972. The local team that grew up the following years included Vanessa Coonan, Barry Flannery, and later Wolfgang Laue, Mike Giles, and Jim Hayes. We dealt with companies in Austria and Switzerland as well as Germany. In 1974 I took over from John as IDA director for this key region. In 1977 IDA opened a second office in Stuttgart, headed by Dr. Declan Glynn who later became chief executive of the NBST.

IDA overseas offices were open to all opportunities as they arose – we were in the business of getting as many new companies into Ireland as possible – but we sought to target specific sectors and companies. We organised face-to-face meetings (this was the key selling approach to firms) and workshops with sector groups and accountants in cooperation with the IDA sectoral teams in Dublin.

The Hannover Fair rented space in the Internationaler Treffpunkt hall (international meeting hall) to international agencies like ours. We sought to meet potential investors and invited contacts to join us for Irish coffee each evening on the stand. Those gatherings became something of an institution. The investment business is all about relationship building. At the fair you could speak to senior people that were otherwise difficult to access.

Siemens and Nixdorf Computer were the dominant forces in the German computer industry and were regular ‘targets’ and participants at our ‘happy Irish hour’. Nixdorf was based nearby in Paderborn – the home town of its founder Heinz Nixdorf – and would bus 200 staff from there to Hannover each morning during the fair to meet the company’s customers and partners. All Nixdorf board members attended the full duration of the Fair and had offices on the upper levels of its exhibition stand. Fairs were crucial for business.

Declan Murphy (right) with Dr. Hanns-Martin Schleyer, President of the German Employers Federation, at the Hannover Fair in April 1977. Dr. Schleyer, a strong supporter of IDA and Ireland, was killed six months later by the Red Army Faction (also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang).

John O’Sullivan had contact with the Essen-based accountancy firm of Dr. Gerhard Schmidt – advisors to Nixdorf – in the late 1960s. I also met him at various IDA promotion seminars in 1973-74. Dr. Schmidt had become the chairman of the supervisory board of Nixdorf Computer AG in 1969 and was a close personal friend and advisor of Heinz Nixdorf.

I became involved in substantive direct negotiations with Heinz Nixdorf in 1976. He had considered Ireland in earlier years as a location for a new plant. But these plans had stalled due to economic conditions and his preoccupation with the ongoing growth of his company. I asked to meet him at the Nixdorf stand in the Hannover Fair and in a two minute discussion he agreed to meet me at his H.Q. offices in the coming month.

We met in Paderborn for a half day and he ‘toured’ me through his plant. After long discussion the Irish project concept was back under consideration. Apart from his eminent position as one of Germany’s leaders in the ICT sector he showed a huge interest in detail. He liked to talk with visitors like me about the building features he had personally designed at the company’s headquarters.

Nixdorf Computer announced an investment in Bray in 1977 and started operations there in the following year. Bray had a good labour pool and a convenient site. The IDA team serviced his site group in Ireland and IDA was prepared to back the project with incentives. Nixdorf was the second minicomputer company, after Digital Equipment, to set up an assembly facility in Ireland. On the first ever official visit of a German Chancellor to Ireland, Helmut Schmidt used the Bray plant for a forum and dialogue with German companies and press in Ireland.

Heinz Nixdorf died tragically from a heart attack at Hannover Fair in 1986. His passing contributed to the demise and eventual takeover of Nixdorf by Siemens. The Bray plant closed in 1990.

I returned to Ireland from Germany in 1979 as the IDA’s head of promotion. My new responsibilities ranged from worldwide promotion events and advertising and organising ministerial trade missions. In the late 1980s, in line with an IDA policy of rotation, I moved to managing the engineering and automotive division. I retained contact with many German and technology companies, German Chamber and media. As Chairman of the Board of St. Kilian’s German School I led the negotiations for the construction of a new primary and secondary school, 100% funded by the German government.

During my years in Germany the IDA had become more energetic and innovative in seeking out new sector opportunities. In the early 1970s it supported data processing service projects by North American companies such as University Computing Company and Neodata. It subsequently established an ‘International Services’ section under Bill Brosnan with experienced executives like Gus Jones, Ciaran Lane and Angela Jupe. Initially their focus was on engineering and architectural services – companies like John Jacobs Engineering from the USA were attracted – and on potential medical services. It quickly became apparent that best prospects were in software and computer services.

By the 1980s the IDA had a team of 18 executives headed by PJ Daly working with Irish and international services projects. The key executives included Willie O’Brien, Tom Weymes, Enda Connolly, Jerry Kelly, Jane Williams, Therese Looney, Myles Duffy, Philip Corish and Eamonn Ryan.

In the period 1973-1983 the IDA approved 138 service industry projects (26% were in software and computer services and this percentage was growing rapidly) with an employment level of 5,200 jobs. Half of the projects were Irish and half foreign companies. A further 60 projects were approved but closed early or did not go ahead. A review showed that the failure rate was attributable to early stage company and market difficulties, recession, lack of equity funding, and parent group strategy and management change.

GC McKeown and Kindle were among the Irish firms that produced packaged applications for minicomputers. The IDA featured both of them in its promotional campaigns. We saw Kindle, in particular, as a ‘great white hope’. It was run by a team with diverse skills, whereas some other software companies had good technicians but lacked the business-minded people that could build and sustain a new business through the stages of growth.

An important building block in IDA’s approach the software and technology sector at the start of the 1980s was the formation of an international services committee and enterprise development programme (EDP) committee, on which IDA people and industry representatives worked together to constructively evaluate and approve project proposals. They dealt exclusively with Irish companies.

The members of these committees were drawn from several lines of business, but two of the key participants – Mentec founder Mike Peirce on the EDP committee and Trinity Professor John Byrne on the services committee – came from the computing world. They not only brought their technical and commercial experience into the evaluation process. They were also very receptive to new ideas, proved to be highly supportive in their feedback to companies and were generous with their time.

It was the International Services Division that largely initiated and drove the IDA’s policy of taking equity in client companies. This was a pragmatic and effective response to software company needs (and later EDP companies), given the reluctance of banks and most venture capital bodies at that time to support early stage and innovative ICT companies. The policy was refined and extended to engage partnership with financial sources during the 1990s.

I headed the International Services Division and Enterprise Development Programme in the early years of that decade. In 1994 the section of IDA that supported Irish businesses was integrated into a new agency, Forbairt (later Enterprise Ireland), which I joined. This split gave a more dedicated ‘single organisation’ focus to domestic industry. I also participated as a member of the Information Society Steering Committee and its first ‘Strategy for Action’ in December 1996. I was instrumental in the establishment of the National Software Directorate, undertaking much of the ground work in specifying roles and integration in IDA and Forbairt. I had now become an advocate for the software industry inside a wider political and institutional system that often did not fully understand the opportunities for and needs of international services companies. But change and progress were coming.

I moved to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris in 1997 as Director of the OECD Investment Compact and Director of the OECD Centre for Private Sector Development. I returned to Ireland in 2004 and set up a consulting network, Strategy Partners Ireland, that mainly advises governments on industrial development policy.

In 1998 the Irish Software Association awarded me their ‘Award for Individual Achievement’ of the year award in recognition of my advocacy and support work for the sector.

My leadership and contribution for achievements in building business, investment and educational links between Ireland and Germany was recognised in 1986 by President Richard von Weizsäcker of Germany in awarding me the ‘Officers Cross of the Order of Merit First Class’.

Last edit: September 2017

© Declan Murphy 2017