PayPal says it will create 1,000 new jobs in Ireland over the next four years at its new European HQ in Dundalk, Co Louth.
The announcement of 1,000 new jobs is always pleasing for a Government and in these hardened times even more so. PayPal is a welcome blossom in the collapsed mountain of rubble that many feel is Ireland today. However, it’s not the only US digital giant to plant its roots in our shattered soil. And if the IDA has anything to do with it, it could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Ireland is now the undisputed digital hub of Europe. All the digital giants are here – Google, Microsoft, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, PayPal and Salesforce to name but a few. What’s interesting is the IDA’s strategy for the future.
The IDA CEO Barry O’Leary says his agency is already looking for the next wave of web giants to open European bases. The IDA keeps a close eye on all digital start-ups led by former employees of firms like Google and Microsoft. It is now, according to Bloomberg, targeting companies with turnovers of less than $30 million a year. This is a clever strategy and one that should pay dividends.
At the launch of Zynga’s office last year, COO, Marcus Segal – who was in Dublin to open the office in the morning and to speak at the Dublin Web Summit in the afternoon – said that the IDA was instrumental in Zynga’s decision to set up shop in Dublin. “The IDA approached us at a very early stage in our development as a company and kept in constant contact. They knew us and we knew them very well by the time we went looking to open in Europe.”
Barry O’Leary put it very succinctly when he said, “We’ve already got the top ten companies born of the Internet. We ain’t gonna stop at that.”

The small can get very big
Small digital companies often grow into large ones. PayPal’s European centre opened in Dublin in 2003 and employed just 25 people. In 2009 PayPal, now owned by eBay, invested €15 million in the establishment of a European Centre of Excellence in Blanchardstown, with the support of IDA Ireland. Today it employs over 1,400 people with at least 1,000 more to come.
It’s not the first US web giant to dip its toe in Irish waters, enjoy the experience and then expand rapidly.
Facebook had only a handful of employees when it opened in Dublin in 2008. Now it employs over 350 people and plans to double the size of its European HQ ahead of its IPO.
Google, again started with just over 140 people when it opened in Dublin. It now has over 2,200 people employed at its EU HQ and plans to add a further 1,000 jobs. It is also very active in the cloud computing sector in Ireland and is responsible for the indirect employment of thousands more highly skilled engineers and programmers.
What we are witnessing here, and what we should celebrate more, is the transformation of Ireland into Europe’s Digital Island.

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