[LINK] "Even Tom Cruise Can’t Buy Ireland Success With Heritage Sales"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Donal Griffen reports on the failure of Ireland to mobilize its diaspora to save its economy, at least as much as it wanted.

For Ireland, a drive to tap into the pockets of its diaspora turned out to be mission impossible.

The government said in Dublin this week that it’s scrapping a certificate of heritage, the state’s imprimatur on the recipient’s Irish roots, amid slow sales. Not even awarding certificates to actor Tom Cruise and President Barack Obama inspired much business.

“It’s a very good concept,” Jimmy Deenihan, an Irish junior minister with responsibility for “diaspora affairs,” said in an interview on RTE Radio on Tuesday. “But certainly the take-up was lower than expected.”

The government has sold about 3,000 of the certificates, which was “considerably less than anticipated,” the Foreign Affairs ministry said. The project’s scrapping is a rare reversal for a nation that has long traded on the emotions of Americans in search of their heritage. Tourism accounts for more than 4 percent of the Irish economy, with about one in six trips coming from North America, and proved a bright spot as the country emerged from its worst recession on record.