the foobar zone

The "Nigel effect" is a term I've heard used occasionally in the context of British businesses dealing with Irish businesses.

It's no secret to admit that Irish businesses were pretty ditsy for a very long period of time. Nor to admit that Ireland was an economic basket-case until at least the early 1990's. However, things changed and got better and now - at least on paper - we appear to be richer than most of nations in Europe. This is purely an illusion, of course. After 190 years of neglect, our infrastructural deficit is so great that it will take us another 20 years of continued economic growth to get to where most of the rest of Europe is today.

Most of this economic growth is based on multinational companies who have set up base in Ireland. Most of these companies would be american, but there are a smattering from around Europe. The surprising thing is that there are far fewer British-owned companies operating in the Republic than you'd expect.

The reason that has been noted by people in the industry is referred to as the "Nigel Effect", which states that where-ever you have a business deal which involves foreign investment into Ireland, and which involves people called "Nigel" sitting at the meeting table, the plan will fail, and the business will go any other country in the world other than Ireland.

Now, while this sounds like inferiority complex crap, there is a certain grain of truth to it. International attitudes to Ireland have changed greatly over the past 15 years, but this is much less the case in Britain - they're our next-door neighbour, and had a good view into how dreadful things really were over here for so long, and our national relationship with them has had something of a chequered history, and so forth. Ergo, the argument goes, anyone British in a position of authority will tend to view doing business in Ireland or recommending Ireland as a good place to do business as something between pointless and outright nonsensical.

Is it true?

Probably as true as Murphy's Law.