Government seeks to safeguard IFSC jobs and bring in new investment

Employees within the IFSC fear not - the government has got your back. Though Dublin's financial hub has so far been spared any deep cuts, finance minister Brian Lenihan is considering a PR offensive to ensure international firms don't scale back their Irish operations and is also hoping to drum up fresh investment.

While the likes of Citi and State Street are rumoured to have trimmed their workforce this year, statistics from the latest Finance Dublin Yearbook suggest that employment fell by just 0.6% over the course of 2008.

To ensure this cost-cutting is kept to a minimum, Lenihan looks set to engage with the management at top firms with significant Irish operations, according to a report in the Irish Independent.

Perhaps more significantly, he's hoping Dublin can capitalise on the shifting environment in the global financial sector.

A senior financial industry figure told the Independent: "Aside from trying to maintain functions in Dublin, there is a lot of potential business up for grabs as major financial groups go about restructuring over the next 12 to 18 months."

Liam Donlon, chairman of the Federation of International Banks in Ireland pointed to "our well-educated, skilled and flexible workforce, favourable fiscal regime and our ready access to markets".