FOREIGN companies spend £10 million a day, or £3.7 billion a year, on supplies from Irish firms, according to the IDA Ireland chief executive, Mr Kieran McGowan. He said that there had been a 70 per cent growth in their linkages since 1988. Total sales of IDA backed firms now amount to £11 billion, he said.

However, Mr McGowan said there were serious issues to address in relation to linkages, particularly the issue of scale "where multi nationals are opting more and more for fewer large scale suppliers in their global supply chains".

He said that, with shortening product life cycles, multinationals were looking for suppliers which could cope with increasing cost pressures and demands on innovation and design skills within the supplier companies.