Given Ireland's long history of impoverishment, its role as a high-tech mecca may still come as a surprise to many. As recently as 20 years ago, Ireland's leading export was lace. But in the past decade, Ireland has used low taxes and high literacy rates to persuade tech companies to build plants there. Dell opened its first Irish factory in 1991. Today, it has five facilities employing about 5,700 people.
Success breeds success.
Those factories have helped push the country's annual growth rate to an average of nearly 10 percent over the past decade. In 1993, about 240,000 workers were unemployed in the nation of 3.7 million. Last year, only 75,000 were jobless, sending the unemployment rate to 4.1 percent. Despite the rapid economic growth in the 1990s, Ireland's inflation rate remained low throughout the decade. But soaring energy prices in 2000 helped drive up consumer prices by nearly 6 percent, the highest rate in Europe, where the average was 2.3 percent.