Web Summit agrees to meet City Councillors to identify issues for large scale events.

Cllr Paul McAuliffe, the Chairperson of Dublin City Council’s Enterprise and Economic Development Committee has confirmed that the Web Summit has agreed to meet with City Councillors on the Enterprise and Economic Development Committee in November to identify the issues  that led to the withdrawal of the Summit from Dublin.

The agreement of the Web Summit to meet the committee in November comes ahead of an interim report which will be presented to Councillors tomorrow at the Enterprise and Economic Development Committee meeting at 4pm in City Hall. (Thursday 22 October). The report will outline the support provided to the Web Summit organisers and the level of engagement with officials.
Commenting ahead of the report Cllr McAuliffe said he “welcomed the Web Summit’s decision to meet with the Committee in November and looked forward to seeing what lessons could be learned from their experience.

“It is clear the government want to put everything down to this purely being a commercial decision but I believe that the decision of the web summit to move to Lisbon was also based a lack of urgency by the Taoiseach and his officials”

“The City Council has supported the Summit since its inception, and I want to see Dublin win this event back when their time in Lisbon ends. In order to do that we need to establish the support which has been provided to date, the efforts that were made by officials to resolve problems and the measures which are now needed to ensure this event returns to Dublin,” said Cllr McAuliffe.

“This event was not just about 30,000 people coming to Dublin. Losing it is also about our reputation, it is about our brand as a city. We want Dublin to be a great place to do business and a great place for Investors to link up with Irish start-ups. This event was an opportunity for Irish start-ups to have access to senior leaders in the Tech sector and now because of the Government’s inaction that access is gone. I want Dublin City to win this event back and I want Dublin City Council to do everything possible in our power to ensure Paddy Cosgrave and his team knows that.”