Grants Reap Large ROI From Boston Scientific
When former Tánaiste and PD leader Mary Harney remarked in 2000 that spiritually Ireland is “probably a lot closer to Boston than Berlin”, she might have had Boston Scientific Corporation (BSC) in mind. The Marlborough, Massachusetts, medical devices giant is one of largest US investors in Ireland, and its enthusiasm to keep on investing in the ould sod is incentivised by substantial state aid. However, what the State gives out with one hand it more than recoups with the other.
The European Union’s state aid register discloses that in 2023 IDA Ireland approved €18m in taxpayer funding in six different tranches for Boston Scientific. In the six-year period 20172023, the company has benefited from €57m in IDA payments, effected through 24 grant approvals.
The free money has gone towards major investments. The company began operating in Ireland in 1994 with 30 employees, and the workforce has expanded to around 6,000 at sites in Clonmel, Cork and Galway. Grant aid approvals in 2023 related to Boston Scientific’s €80m investment at its Clonmel operation, which makes metal additives used in electronic components. The company expects the additional capacity and output will add 400 jobs to its Tipperary workforce.
In 2022, Boston Scientific unveiled expansion of its facility at Ballybrit in Galway, with a stated investment cost of €100m and the promise of 300 extra jobs. This came three years after the company expanded Galway output with a new factory at the site of the former Digital building. The Galway factories make millions of heart stents and valves, vascular balloons and oesophageal stents for export back to the US and other global markets.
On the Model Farm Road in Cork, Boston Scientific employs c.1,300 people to manufacture medical devices for interventional oncology, coronary artery disease, digestive disorders and severe asthma. Its most recent expansion announcement was in 2021, with a €30m project promising 70 additional engineering and production jobs.
To keep the IDA honest, BSC doesn’t have all its eggs in the Ireland basket. The company has eight manufacturing facilities in the US, as well as in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Brazil.
BSC’s main operating company in Ireland is Boston Scientific Ltd, which recorded turnover of $1.5bn in 2022. The company employed 2,520 people in administration and management roles and 3,330 production operatives, on average salaries of $62,300 (€57,500).
Employer PRSI for the year was €32m, while the taxman also garnered around €100m in payroll taxes from Boston Scientific staff. Add on another €12m in corporation tax and in this case the IDA’s return on investment for the Exchequer is pretty good.