BY JOE LEARY
SPECIAL TO THE BIR

In a welcome sign of renewed confidence in the slightly improving Irish economy, leaders in Cork are aggressively working on a new program to provide jobs for all working people in their county. Twenty business, educational, and political leaders have united behind an ambitious foundation to provide start up and secondary funding to new and expanding job- creating businesses.
One of the spearheads behind the effort is Aine Collins TD, the North Cork member of Parliament who visited Boston last month in to marshal support for what is called, simply, the Cork Foundation. One way to describe the foundation is to compare it to a non-profit venture capital company with a plan that is well thought out and the obvious beneficiary of experienced advice. It is practical with many safeguards and very clear criteria for participation by the funded companies.

This fall a formal dinner in Cork City will be held to introduce the foundation, which has a short-term goal of raising five million euro to be made available to companies in Cork. The dinner has already received hundreds of thousands of euro in commitments. And judging from Collins’s enthusiasm and energy, success is nearly guaranteed.

Among other appointments, Collins visited the offices of The Irish American Partnership where she outlined the idea and the exciting progress it has already achieved. Boston’s recently arrived Consul General Breandan O’Caollai also held a round-table discussion in his office to garner support for the foundation.

The Irish American Partnership has provided grants to 18 Cork schools and has just awarded a $25,000 scholarship to the Cork Institute of Technology to study the history of electronic technology in Ireland over the last twenty years.

County Cork is the largest county in Ireland in geography and third in population behind Dublin and Belfast (Antrim) with just over 500,000 people. The success of the Cork Foundation could serve as a model for business expansion in other counties.