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Opinion
The Web Summit relocation isn't surprising, we couldn't even keep the WiFi working
Bord Failte estimates the summit generated around €100 million in the local economy last year and this will be a significant loss. But let’s get things in perspective in economic terms, writes Angela Nagle.
5.20pm, 24 Sep 2015
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THE NEWS THAT Dublin’s Web Summit has chosen to relocate to Lisbon for 2016 should come as little surprise.
At previous summits, visitors listened to Enda Kenny declare Ireland’s ambition to become ‘capital of the digital world’ while being unable to get online.
One year Dublin even had its water cut off and attendees soon found themselves in crowded bars where glasses could not be washed and toilets could not be flushed.
The irony was almost too perfect. The poor basic infrastructure that has led to the loss of the Dublin Web Summit is an inevitable consequence of precisely the kind of post-industrial, low tax, free market, ‘new economy’ thinking glamourised by the summit itself.
Portugal’s corporation tax is almost twice as high as Ireland’s
Founder Paddy Cosgrave explained that Lisbon was more attractive because of the strong infrastructure in the city, the world-class venue and the low rents and lower wages for IT workers. Although Portugal’s corporation tax is almost twice as high as Ireland’s which may explain their decision to keep their HQ here.
Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland
Mark Stedman / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland
Bord Failte estimates the summit generated around €100 million in the local economy last year and this will be a significant loss. But let’s get things in perspective in economic terms.
The company employs around 130 people in Ireland, about the same as many dreary hotels or small manufacturers in mid sized towns around Ireland, the managers of which would never be regarded as major public figures, the employees of which would never identify as creatives and the closure of which would scarcely generate news outside of a few inches in the local papers.
It’s clear that to some this represents something more symbolic than numbers can account for. Not least the Irish state.
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‘European Silicon Valley’
Before the bailout the government was rolling out plans for Ireland to become a ‘world class knowledge economy’. In 2009, as the economy was sinking into a recession, Brian Cowen expressed his vision for Ireland to become the ‘European Silicon Valley’ and then there was Richard Bruton’s vision of a ‘global technology hub’.
When the US Internet sector began to boom in the 1990s, Wired editor Kevin Kelly claimed that the net had created a new paradigm in production that had transcended the boom and bust cycle.
Wired magazine ran a cover, proclaiming: ‘We’re facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that?’ It was around this time, when the ideas of the post-industrial ‘new economy’ were ascendant from the hacker underground to the Clinton administration that the Celtic Tiger emerged.
It is easy to see why, for a country that had historically failed to create its own indigenous productive economy, the low tax, post-material economy model was so appealing.
Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE / Web Summit
Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE / Web Summit / SPORTSFILE / Web Summit
Cosgrave’s events replicated precisely the corporate bohemian sensibility of Silicon Valley, where what would normally be considered the grubby business of profit and loss has been elevated to a Woodstock for the information society in which the entrepreneurial “ecosystem” can flourish.
Skipping the basic building blocks
The summit, like the presence of Facebook and Google HQs, has been a potent ideological vehicle for those who had to manage an economy that had skipped many of the basic building blocks of a modern industrial nation, instead using the lure of low corporation tax to generate economic activity.
During the boom, Ireland squandered perhaps its greatest opportunity for a major leap forward in industrial and infrastructural development, as the current disaster of water privatisation reminds us, and the glamour of finance, information technology multinationals and hip young start-ups have been fundamental to presenting this failure as a virtue.
International speakers at previous Web Summits argued the case for the ‘double Irish’ and Ireland’s low tax model but in 2016 they’ll have to make the case to someone else from somewhere else because of the shortcomings in Irish infrastructure resulting from precisely that model.
It turns out, despite what the summit’s attendees may have been told, that an economy can’t be built on information and there are some problems that information technology entrepreneurs can’t solve. tjb
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I actually went to the web summit or davos for geeks as it is known. As an IT professional I was underwhelmed. Had I been looking for funding for an app I would have loved to have taken a 1.5 x 1.5 metre shelf for €20k a day and stand around desperately looking for investors (and you could see the desperation in peoples faces, a bit like in HBO’s silicon valley).
I listened to some of the speeches and was afraid I would go asleep. I talked with some exhibitors who were not sure why there were even there. I ate lunch and went home. I didnt care there was no wi-fi but I understand its a big deal.
I dont think any phrase is more over-used and mis-understood than knowledge economy – I once asked the Irish head of a department with a large consultancy group what it means and he couldn’t tell me. If you mean US multi nationals doing the double Irish then I understand that. If you were to say to me that Paddy Cosgrave wants to milk this thing before its over then I understand that.
Also, if you think the Irish are miserable wait until you see the portuguese – I have been on holidays there twice and wont go back. (Apparently they were always unhappy, the economic destruction of their country just made them worse, I heard this from someone who lived there).
I disagree what you say about Portugal. I’m in Lisbon a few times a year and I think they’re the friendliest Europeans going. It’s also the cheapest capital in western Europe. I’ve not been ripped off once there. Even when they hosted the CL final. IT start ups are like hipsters. They follow the trends of low rent and low living costs. Berlin has just happened, so naturally Lisbon is their new home. I just hope they don’t wreck the place.
Irish people love their buzz words. They make the incompetent person sound like they know what they are talking about but under the slightest scrutiny they usually fall to pieces. We talk a good game here but the execution rarely meets hype.
Indeed Bob, Portugal is fabulous and so are the people. What with a fantastic history, language, culture, food, climate and also family values, its super. Madeira is my hot spot with the family and if you have not been I highly recommend it.
Use google to translate the following article:
jornaldenegocios.pt/empresas/tecnologias/detalhe/o_wi_fi_em_lisboa_e_melhor_que_em_dublin_as_cinco_razoes_para_a_web_summit_mudar_se.html
For those reading on mobile phones that cannot do that link (like mine couldnt): it says…
1. Organisers say Dublin Hotel Capacity + Venue too small for an event over 30K people
2. The WiFi – Portuguese Government will pay for WiFi Infrastructure for them so issues wont happen again
3. And will give them support to the value of 1.3 million euros per year for 3 years
Good article , hoping that Ireland will become a knowledge based economy while systematically cutting education budgets and not investing in infrastructure is just daft.
They constantly go on about how it’s the most amazing event and Paddy Cosgrove even has the https://twitter.com/websummitlove account in his twitter bio.
Maybe this massive “love” for the amazing event is the same types of lie Paddy told the world about him building Tito?
Surely is the event was so bad that they had to move they wouldn’t have put so much effort into telling the world how amazing it is?
The fact of the matter is they took €750,000 off the Irish tax payer and wanted more so went seeking a country that would give them more taxpayers money so they could run their event.
What I find ironic is that they go on repeatedly about how the event is amazing for doing business deals yet they couldn’t operate out with bigger hand-outs from the taxpayer.
It’s not surprising consider they sector they promote is riddled with massive tax evaders and corporate welfareists.
Considering the event generated 100m I don’t think the 750k is relevant. Really isn’t surprising they left. Couldn’t provided good quality Internet for the event, RDS is to small now, hotels prices going through the roof for the weekend… List goes on and on. Such a massive loss for the city
USC and property tax aren’t all that bad on their own merits but combined with the rest of austerity it’s too much too soon. We recovered off the backs of middle and working class people while the rich got richer. regressive charges like water charges help the rich get richer while the rest of us count our cents.
lack of investment in services. lack of office space in dublin. High costs of hotel sector attributed to low dublin housing stock. ????…. is that your answer to my question on Vote Left Ireland’s Pro Business Policies ???
Some of us seem to think we are living in London Berlin or Lisbon, the way they moan about lack of infrastructure. Dublin is the capital of a little island off the north west of Europe, with a scattered population of 4 million people, a lot of whom are farmers. get over it and stop beating yourselves up about it, we are not significant in the business world and never will be
Damn… €20k a day to exhibit and €729 regular ticket price.
Good old capitalistic competition should kick in and someone should set up a competing tech conference and under cut their price with a few less smarmy Trinity show offs blowing their own horns.
Does not surprise me in the least. Have any of the negative commentators here been to the Lisbon convention centre? It makes the RDS look like. Cattle shed. It has everything all on the one site, hotels, casinos, restaurants, a massive aquarium, dozens of large halls for exhibitors, a motorway at its door it’s streaks ahead of anything here. Other cities like Milan, Munich,London, Birmingham, Frankfurt, etc etc have purpose built facilities that we don’t. I think that’s the reason rather than the speculation that’s going on here.
in fairness there’d be war here if the state attempted to fund something like that here . we’d be calling for their heads. much better fire the money into a black pit like the HSE.
No doubt that Ireland has bad infrastructure, but that was hardly the primary reason for leaving. Yes, the WiFi not working was embarrassing, but it didn’t exactly dent the popularity of the Web Summit, did it? Lisbon’s tourism board and local government gave the Summit 1.3million reasons to move there. And I’ll bet they’ll have problems there too, despite their infrastructure. Secondly, Cosgrave is an extremely ambitious individual – leaving Dublin was always on the cards, it could never contain the scale he has in mind. And Lisbon will fail in this regard too. The Web Summit will end up in Berlin or London – Dublin was only the cradle.
Even in large US conference centres and hotels they have wifi problems when everyone brings along 2-3 Internet connected devices. The RDSM should have done their homework, sure, but it can be a tricky problem to solve.
Still not “our” problem. That’s a commercial discussion between the Web Summit and the RDS, and I find it difficult to believe that there were no circumstances in which the RDS would not have let Web Summit contract out the WiFi.
Yeah Wi-Fi… when I came to Ireland around 2008, Lisbon was already moving from Cable 50Mb and ADSL2+ to Optical Fiber connections above 150Mb while here in Dublin the max I could get was a 3MB ADSL and would have to pay more than 60 for it.
Can ensure you that WiFi wont be a problem there :) neither transport, accommodation, food, touristic attractions, awesomely friendly people and sun! :D
Maybe off point a little but the best wifi speed some can get in parts of the midlands is 1.5 mbs download. What a joke. There are towns in the outback in australia with triple that.
Lack of good transport infrastructure was one of the reasons given.
The day after these gombeens had cancelled the Dart extension in Dublin.
This is probably just the start of major events being cancelled due to the lack of transport infrastructure.
We haven’t a prayer of getting the Rugby world in 23..
After listening to Noonan with his annoying voice telling us. “It doesn’t matter sure they left they wanted to leave”,i doubt they will come back with the way he handled it.
Ireland will never be a silicon anything, because Ireland is shortsighted. We should have after school coder dojos, computers in all classrooms. The need to build the #irelandtomorrow by giving the youngest the tools today.
This article is just a Left-wing diatribe, using the story of the “Web Summit” as a cover. The content of the article has little or no relevance to the issue of how the Web Summit actually came to be in Ireland in the first place, nor why it left.
Who’s yer one in the photo in the middle? On the mobile site at least, there’s no indication. It looks like just a random woman sitting on a couch stuck in the middle of the article. Smiling politely.
“the employees of which would never identify as creatives”. What’s that supposed to mean? Creatives as they are arrogantly called are not the driving force behind true innovation – the nerdy techies are.
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