Not really surprising: Ireland is set to become
the third wealthiest country in Europe, and is about to overtake Germany. Not surprisingly, they're quite a bit ahead of
the UK already, as the British government has its head up its arse in a lot
of matters (witness the RIP bill, for one example, not to mention dropping the
ball on telecom deregulation and e-commerce). I imagine a lot of this
is due to Ireland not having the luxury of saying "we conquered half the world,
we're a major world power, we can do as we bloody well please" and proceeding
to cock things up. In any case, I suspect that a lot of companies based in
the UK will be moving over to Ireland in future, and not just to evade the
British government's surveillance laws (as some ISPs are). (via Leviathan)