Pictured: Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Finance for Ireland and President of the Eurogroup
Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Finance for Ireland and President of the Eurogroup, discusses collective resilience in the US and Ireland in addressing challenges presented by COVID-19.
The following piece was originally published in the Ireland INC US 250 Index 2021 Special Report, supported by KPMG. Read it here.
The Covid-19 global pandemic has brought significant challenges to the Irish economy, and to those of our global partners. The pandemic has affected us all from a health, societal and economic perspective and has forced us to make many difficult choices and decisions. It has also necessitated changes in the way we conduct our lives and our business as we seek to protect and support our loved ones and our economies. We have shown great collective resilience in addressing these challenges and simultaneously found new innovative approaches to how we conduct our business.
As we progress into 2021, the extensive roll-out of vaccinations in the US and Europe marks the beginning of a significant phase in recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. We look forward to rebuilding our economies with renewed optimism, learning from the innovation that allowed us to address the challenges posed by Covid-19 and turning them into strategies to unlock new opportunities for a prosperous future. After many difficult months, we can look positively to a new dawn where we emerge from the darkness of Covid-19.
Key to this new dawn will be the relationship between Ireland and the United States, strengthening and expanding the mutually beneficial economic relationship which our countries enjoy.
President Biden has long been a true friend to Ireland. He has already re-stated his commitment to revitalising the EU-US transatlantic relationship, as well as the importance of the EU and US working together to shape the global agenda. As a small, open economy, Ireland is all too well aware of the need to be adaptable, and the importance of free and open international trade and cooperation.
My Government colleagues and I look forward to working with President Biden, his Administration and Members of Congress in the years ahead to sustain and strengthen Irish American relations, including our economic ties, in pursuit of a strong and sustainable global economic recovery. We will be ably assisted in this task – as always – by our excellent State Agencies. The IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Tourism Ireland will be working even harder than ever before to promote trade, investment and, when it is safe to do so again, tourism between the US and Ireland.
It is increasingly clear that we will emerge to a ‘new normal’ and that it will be very different from what went before. Yet this new dawn and new approach to a post-Covid world will bring many opportunities in the months and years ahead.
While the road to recovery may yet have some twists and turns, we are well positioned to overcome these challenges together. These past months have highlighted for us our interconnectedness and interdependence, and across all spheres the Irish Government treasures its close relations with the US.
Strengthening the US-Irish relationship is a key part of rebuilding our economies and I look forward to supporting you and working with you to realise this goal.