Minister Burke “EU faces microchip battle”.
Minister Peter Burke
Europe is under “real pressure” over its poor market share in semiconductor production, Peter Burke has warned, saying Ireland is planning to spend €300 million on three megasites to attract major chip manufacturers to the country.
The enterprise minister said it was a “big worry” that the vast majority of advanced chip manufacturing – 92 per cent, according to the Boston Consulting Group – takes place in Taiwan.
He noted that while the EU Chips Act had aimed to double the bloc’s global market share in semiconductors to 20 per cent, “we’re well short of that”.
“And we’re under real pressure now, because of the amount, maybe 92 per cent, of chips made in Taiwan,” Burke told reporters last week.
“That’s particularly of the top-quality chips, the latest innovation chips. That’s a big worry for us as an economy, because we need to ensure that the European economy is realising its strategic objectives, and we need to really invest more heavily in this sector.”
As part of Budget 2026, the Department of Enterprise said it would spend €100 million on next-generation sites “to prepare large-scale regional serviced locations for future FDI”.
That was part of its overall capital allowance of €4.88 billion allocated under the National Development Plan, consisting of €3.68 billion in state funding and another €1.2 billion in projected income from Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland.
On Wednesday Burke went further, saying the government would spend around €300 million on sites around the country to try to court international microchip manufacturers.
“We have a very significant fund for our large-scale sites, which will be central to delivering Silicon Island, which is our plan for our semiconductor activity,” he said.
In June, the Business Post revealed that the government had earmarked €3.2 billion to develop a 1,000-acre semiconductor megasite in Oranmore, Co Galway, in a bid to win business from companies like Intel, Nvidia and TSMC.
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