Does Ireland have sufficient expertise if green investment really takes off?

The government is anticipating that green investment could create a massive jobs boom within the International Financial Services Centre over the next ten years. But does Ireland have sufficient expertise for these roles, or will it have to look to overseas talent?

Eamon Ryan, the minister for communications, energy and natural resources, is this year creating a team to spearhead a "green IFSC", which could specialise in green investments, fund administration, carbon-trading and other ways of financing environmental projects.

This could create up to 20,000 jobs over the next 10 years, he suggests.

"It could specialise in clean energy project finance or carbon trading," he said. "It could also look at ethical fund management and administration. We would specialise in three or four key areas."

Although the scale of the government's ambitions is big news, financing of renewable energy projects has been creating a steady supply of jobs in Ireland over the last 12 months. For instance, Bank of Ireland created a €100m fund for this purpose in March last year and KBC Project Finance also focuses on this sector.

"The large domestic banks were the first movers in this space, and the corporate lending divisions set up teams focused on lending to SMEs in the renewable energy business," says James Hayes, manager - banking and financial services, at Robert Walters in Ireland.

However, like the majority of financial services recruitment in Ireland over the last year, expansion within the green investment sector has been on the back burner of late. But even when hiring was hot, talent wasn't readily available locally.

"In the past, we've extended the search for these positions to the UK," says Andrea Clarkson, manager, financial services at recruiters Premier Group. "However, a number of Irish expats with expertise in this sector have shown an interest in returning for these roles."

Still, if carbon trading and ethical fund management skills aren't in plentiful supply locally, Ireland has no shortage of fund administration expertise, suggests Robin Craig, director of recruiters Careers Compass.

"Whether it be private equity, hedge funds or mutual funds, a lot of fund administration skills are transferable across numerous asset classes," he says. "If ethical fund administration takes off here, it wouldn't be a great leap for the talent to migrate across to this sector."