Paying for jobs in Scotland

Scotland is paying up to bring financial services jobs in Glasgow. Should Dublin do the same?

The SNP-led Scottish administration awarded 6m to US financial services giant Morgan Stanley on condition it creates 600 jobs in Glasgow. The handout from the Regional Selective Assistance scheme, (which amounts to a hefty 10k per job), was blasted by both opposition politicians and groups who look into how taxpayers' money is spent - after it emerged that Morgan Stanley had plans to expand its Scottish presence anyway.

Summing up the outrage, Derek Brownlee MSP, Scottish Conservative finance spokesman, said: "You can only justify the use of taxpayers' money to create jobs if they would not have come without the money."

Scotland's recruiters are, predictably, less damning of the RSA job initiative. Neil Campbell, a recruiter at the Edinburgh office of Change Jobs, says he personally has no problem with his tax money being spent supporting financial services in Scotland.

He tells us: "We have come across this before with HSBC Securities. It was given a couple of million a few years ago and it has gone on to expand even further since then. And, really, 6m is not a lot of money in terms of demonstrating [the Executive's] commitment to financial services, which is a huge boost to the Scottish economy."

Should Dublin dig deep to bring the jobs in too? Arguably, it's less necessary - Ireland is already pulling in business thanks to a low corporate tax rate. According to the Irish Funds Industry Association, jobs rose 22% in the country last year. The problem here is less a lack of roles, more who's going to fill them.