Cork Chamber, through its policy team and key subject matter experts from within our membership identified the need to deliver high quality, future proofed Tier-1 international connectivity to ensure businesses located in southern Ireland are competitive. Due to a myriad of obstacles to the country’s national broadband infrastructure, including high Cork-Dublin Backhaul costs, Cork Chamber believed strongly that any improvements to a national network which are not adequately connected internationally would be in vain. Subsequently, Cork Chamber developed and advocated strong economic arguments, at a regional and national level, for bringing Tier 1 international connectivity to Cork and thus a second national access point for the country amongst key economic policy decision-makers. 

At present, all international traffic is routed via Dublin and there are no Tier-1 connections outside Dublin, other than possibly via Kelvin link in Northern Ireland. This places Regional Ireland at a disadvantage to Dublin for location of high-data centric companies. In addition to this, there is currently strong demand from data-centric corporates for Diversity and Latency. 

Having carried out significant research and analysis on what bringing Tier-1 International Connectivity to Cork would mean, Cork Chamber realised that the delivery of such an enabling piece of infrastructure would not only be of significance to Cork, but would also be of national significance

The opportunity would indeed be for Ireland Inc, with the subsequent attraction of significant FDI, job creation, reduced telecommunications cost and the shortest latency between IRL / EU and US. 

Protecting Current Industry and Promoting Job Creation

Tier 1 international connectivity in the southern part of the country would present all regional hubs along the Atlantic Corridor (Galway, Limerick, Shannon, Ennis and Waterford) and the South West (Cork and Kerry) region as serious candidate locations for data-centric companies, Internet players and financial services organisations as a European headquarters or back-up locations for their presence in other European locations, whilst at the same time protecting and promoting the competitiveness of indigenous and multinational industry in regional Ireland.

Bringing Tier 1 international data connectivity to Cork represents a significant economic opportunity for the Cork region, Having identified the criticality of such an enabling piece of infrastructure for the region, Cork Chamber has lobbied government, state agencies and business interests extensively on the issue over the last number of years and are delighted with the announcement which will now see Cork secure this distinct competitive edge.

The arrival of Express in Cork  later this year opens a new international telecommunications access point from Cork delivering the lowest latency between Ireland, the US and the EU.  The new Express cable added to other recent developments in the Cork region such as One Albert Quay, the re-development of Pairc Ui Chaoimh and the recent announcement that the Beamish and Crawford brewery site has been selected as the preferred site for a new multi-functional events centre for Cork, underscores Cork’s position as a driver of economic development regionally and nationally.