Ireland has 10 R&D homegrown companies and 27 foreign domiciled firms — 3

R&D — Research and Development in a country

The United States and China dominate global R&D spending. The United States leads global R&D spending with nearly USD 784 billion in 2023, closely followed by China at USD 723 billion [China is outpacing all countries in recent spending]. The European Union collectively invested about EUR 381 – 389 billion, equivalent to roughly USD 420 billion, making it the world’s third-largest R&D spender after the U.S. and China — The top global R&D spenders, 2023.

Company	Country	Sector	R&D (€ million)
MEDTRONIC PUBLIC LIMITED	Ireland	Health Care Equipment & Services	2490.66068594512
ACCENTURE	Ireland	Support Services	1182.64020060407
APTIV	Ireland	Automobiles & Parts	1173.84591765384
JAZZ PHARMACEUTICALS	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	773.752967185361
EATON CORPORATION	Ireland	Electronic & Electrical Equipment	686.640668665407
FLUTTER ENTERTAINMENT*	Ireland	Travel & Leisure	630.174996624872
SEAGATE	Ireland	Technology Hardware & Equipment	595.574266986512
ALKERMES	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	343.651816035318
KERRY*	Ireland	Food Producers	305.7
BANK OF IRELAND*	Ireland	Banks	295.0
JOHNSON CONTROLS	Ireland	General Industrials	291.412845375563
TRANE TECHNOLOGIES	Ireland	Industrial Engineering	229.760531438375
ALLIED IRISH BANKS*	Ireland	Banks	186.0
LINDE	Ireland	Chemicals	132.956946452646
STERIS PLC	Ireland	Health Care Equipment & Services	119.004663305127
PROTHENA	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	117.658701634441
PERRIGO	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	111.556342057871
IMCRESS	Ireland	Support Services	110.155748000384
ENDO INTERNATIONAL	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	105.147088700764
MALLINCKRODT	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	102.905033898281
WEATHERFORD INTERNATIONAL	Ireland	General Industrials	101.994369881482
ADIENT	Ireland	Automobiles & Parts	101.994369881482
ALLEGION	Ireland	Household Goods & Home Construction	92.7966633118128
PENTAIR	Ireland	Industrial Engineering	90.8842688676535
NVENT ELECTRIC	Ireland	Electronic & Electrical Equipment	65.11247720011248
KINGSPAN*	Ireland	Construction & Materials	63.5
TRINSEO	Ireland	Chemicals	52.4542437676194
GLANBIA*	Ireland	Food Producers	42.8012087895506
JAMES HARDIE INDUSTRIES	Ireland	Construction & Materials	42.8012087895506
ITERUM THERAPEUTICS	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	36.4192753598235
GLEN DIMPLEX*	Ireland	Household Goods & Home Construction	30.813
GH RESEARCH*	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	27.1250384043735
FBD HOLDINGS*	Ireland	Life Insurance	23.194596
AVADEL PHARMACEUTICALS	Ireland	Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology	12.0763155267708
SMURFIT KAPPA*	Ireland	Forestry & Paper	10.0
ADS-TEC ENERGY	Ireland	Electronic & Electrical Equipment	8.236
GREENCORNE GROUP	Ireland	Food Producers	7.75838125318794

1) In 2024, Accenture’s global workforce had reached nearly 799,000 employees, making it one of the largest consulting firms worldwide.

In 1989, Arthur Andersen, the accountancy firm and Andersen Consulting (as it was known at the time) legally separated due to internal disputes. Despite the split, Andersen Consulting retained its strong foothold in the consulting space and continued to expand its global presence.

On January 1, 2001, the company rebranded as Accenture, a name derived from "Accent on the Future."

In 2009, the group decided to relocate its base to Dublin, following criticism of companies incorporated in Bermuda, which is considered a tax haven.

2) Greencore Group employs approximately 13,300 people in total as of 2025 (or 13,600 in FY23), but the vast majority are located in the UK.

The company is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, but its primary manufacturing and distribution operations (16 manufacturing sites and 17 distribution centres) are in the UK, and it mainly supplies the UK market.

Greencore Group was a former Irish State holding until 1991.

3)  Élan Corporation plc was founded in Ireland by an American businessman named Don Panoz in 1969. 

Don Panoz, born in Ohio, USA, was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who moved to Ireland to establish a new company focused on developing advanced drug delivery technologies. He was motivated by Ireland's lower tax rates and less restrictive bureaucracy at the time. 

Under his leadership, Élan grew to become Ireland's largest corporation by market value in the early 2000s.

In 2013, Élan, to Michigan-based Perrigo, which has been headquartered in the town of Allegan since 1887, announced that it will relocate its tax residence to Ireland, aiming to reduce its tax liabilities by nearly half as it expands its non-US sales.

4) Among the EU countries, the highest R&D intensity in 2023 was recorded in Sweden (3.64%) followed by Belgium (3.27%) and Austria (3.26%) (see Figure 2). The next highest ratios were recorded in Germany (3.13%) and in Finland (3.09%).

Five EU countries reported R&D expenditure that was below 1% of their GDP in 2023; each of these was countries that had joined the EU in 2004 or more recently, with the lowest R&D intensities recorded in Romania (0.52%), Malta (0.64%), Cyprus (0.68), Bulgaria (0.79) and Latvia (0.82).

Ireland has 1.5% (that includes domiciled firms).

"While in 2023 R&D expenditure in the EU's Business enterprise sector was equal to 1.51% of GDP, this ratio reached 3.93% in South Korea, 2.72% in Japan, 2.70% in the United States, and 2.23% in Switzerland. 

The relative significance of R&D expenditure in the Government and Higher education sectors was broadly similar in the EU and across most of these non-member countries, with the notable exception of Switzerland, where government R&D intensity was close to zero." 

In comparison, higher education accounted for a relatively large share (0.92%). 

In South Korea, the share of the Government sector rose to 0.48%, 0.24 pp higher than the EU level (0.24%)."

"An evaluation of the data of the EU countries also confirms that those which had relatively high ratios of business enterprise expenditure on R&D relative to GDP — namely, Sweden (2.70%), Belgium (2.36%), Austria (2.24%), Germany (2.14%), Finland (2.09%) and Denmark (1.91%) — also reported relatively high overall R&D intensities. 

Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Finland also featured at the top of the ranking of expenditure in the Higher education sector (with values ranging between 1.07% and 0.75%). 

Government R&D expenditure relative to GDP was highest in Germany, Slovenia, Belgium, Greece and Czechia (ranging between 0.37% and 0.28%), while Private non-profit sector R&D expenditure relative to GDP was negligible across all countries, peaking at 0.10% in Cyprus."

R&D expenditure

5) Eurostat uses details via Microsoft Excel on the Global Top 2,000 companies that provide R&D and other data on public companies.

In the chart above, there are asterisks in red to identify the 4 born-in-Ireland companies.

 

The last "Irish domicile" is Pentair on the chart of 2,000 total was at 1,653 on the chart.

Ireland's government spending on R&D as a percentage of GDP is considered low, with only 0.21 % 0 . 2 1 % in 2022, the second-lowest in the EU, despite having a high GDP per capita.

The private sector funds the majority of R&D expenditure, which accounted for 80 % 8 0 % of all spending in 2021.

Foreign-owned enterprises spent €5.9bn on R&D in 2023, accounting for 83.8% of all R&D expenditure. In comparison, Irish-owned enterprises spent more than €1.1bn on R&D, accounting for 16.2% of all R&D expenditure.

R&D intensity for a country is defined as the R&D expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2023, the R&D intensity rate for Ireland (1.37%) was below the EU27 average of 1.47%. Ireland ranked 10th in the EU27 in 2023, compared with a ranking of 15th in 2021 and 13th in 2019. Provisional values.28 Apr 2025.

When R&D expenditure from the government (GOV), higher education (HES), and private non-profit (PNP) sectors are included with the business sector, Ireland's total R&D spending was approximately 1.1% to 1.2% of GDP in 2023 (preliminary figures). 

The business sector accounts for the large majority of the R&D spending in Ireland, and including the other sectors increases the total percentage of R&D relative to GDP only slightly.

Breakdown of R&D Expenditure (2023 preliminary data)

Business Enterprise Sector (BES): Accounted for €7.0 billion in R&D expenditure. As a percentage of GDP, this figure was around 1.37% (based on the user's input, which aligns with the proportion of total R&D).

• Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays for R&D (GBARD): Forecast to surpass the €1 billion mark in 2023 for the first time.
• Higher Education Sector (HES) and Private Non-Profit (PNP): These sectors make up the remainder of the total national R&D expenditure (Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D, or GERD). 

In total, R&D expenditure across all sectors as a percentage of GDP was approximately 1.1% to 1.2% in 2023. 

Ireland's R&D intensity (R&D as a % of GDP) is significantly affected by the high GDP generated by multinational corporations, which results in a lower percentage despite the substantial absolute amount of money spent on R&D (especially by foreign-owned firms, which account for 84% of the business total). The total R&D as a percentage of GDP remains low compared to the EU average of 2.26%. — AI

Prominent businessman Denis  O’Brien, on November 11, 2025, in a 45-minute speech at a conference organised by the Business Post in Dublin, said that the country’s planning laws are “severely holding back the country”, as big projects are affected by judicial reviews and long delays, he said.

 “In Ireland, we need to reform all parts of the Government and its administration,” he said.

The Irish Times reported that [ he also took aim at the State for being “complicit in facilitating global tax avoidance” by big US technology giants as they book revenues and profits here on sales taking place elsewhere, including poor African countries.

“This is perfectly legal and within OECD rules,” he said, referring to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. “But the question is: is it acceptable? It is modern-day digital colonialism.”

He said the system is contributing to “gross inequality” and is “the main reason why African immigrants take huge risks in dinghies to reach rich European countries”. But while he noted that tech giants having data centres in Ireland are part of the system and something needs to be done to address tax-collection concerns, he insisted that the Republic needs to become a European leader in data centres.

“The system is mostly being gamed,” he said. “Nearly every CEO of FDI [foreign direct investment] companies or Irish businesses that I speak to these days says that we have a big problem, which, should it continue, will greatly impact Ireland’s FDI and reputation as a hard-working country.”]

Discussion

Top 800 R&D investing EU headquartered companies:  37 for Ireland: 10 plus 27 foreign domiciles 

 Israel's R&D intensity was 6.3% of GDP in 2023, more than double the OECD average, according to a July 2025 post.

According to the U.S. Department of State "U.S. firms account for nearly two-thirds of the more than 400 research and development (R&D) centers established by multinational companies in Israel."

"BIRD Foundation (Binational Industrial Research and Development): Established in 1977, the BIRD Foundation provides matchmaking support and non-dilutive funding (up to 50% of project costs) for joint R&D projects between U.S. and Israeli companies. 

It focuses on various sectors, including life sciences, electronics, and homeland security, and claims royalties only if the project generates commercial revenue."

"The U.S.-Israeli bilateral economic and commercial relationship is strong, particularly in high-tech and R&D, anchored by two-way trade in goods and services that exceeded $50 billion in 2024."

Department of Business / Enterprise, Tourism and Employment:

The Foreign-Owned exports at €424,500 include transfers from other countries to avail of Irish low taxes     

The value of Irish-born exporters to North America in 2024 was €7.30 billion. The total worldwide was €36.7 billion. The value for the other 26 countries of the European Union was €10 billion.

In Ireland (including foreign firms), the R&D intensity is low.

With 2,000 of the top global R&D firms (global 2,000 R&D)   and 800 companies in the European Union, there are a mere 10 Irish homegrown companies. 

There are no Irish-born companies on the 2024 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard list of the top 800 EU-headquartered companies.

Ireland's GDP per capita highest in the world! — 1

Irish software developers were at O.5% in 2024 while the total was 8.4% — 2