“Economic recovery will come from cohesion and flexibility, not from blame and recrimination” – Forfás

“Economic recovery will come from cohesion and flexibility, not from blame and recrimination” – Forfás

Date: 26 February 2009

“The winners in today’s global economy will be those who pull together and demonstrate flexibility, those who adapt rapidly to remain competitive. The losers will be those who focus on blame and where sections of society seek to protect their position at the expense of others,” commented Martin Cronin, Chief Executive of Forfás, the national policy advisory body on enterprise and science, delivering the UCD Engineering Graduates Association Annual Lecture today.

Cronin continued “We have heard strident voices blaming the banks, the construction sector, the public sector, employers and the unions. Our difficulties do not stem from the failures of any one group but from a collective failure which extends far beyond Ireland.”

He commented that we need to support good proposals which address the vital issues of:

  • Maintaining a stable banking system and availability of credit for businesses to trade and invest;
  • Bringing the costs of doing business back down to a level competitive with our trading partners and consistent with our skills, our enterprise base and our infrastructure, particularly in energy and waste management, local authority charges and professional services;
  • Bringing the public finances back into balance, and introducing new fiscal measures for Ireland to capture a larger share of growing international trade and investment in services and intellectual property;
  • Sustaining investment in the education and training of our people, by:
    • equipping those recently made unemployed with skills to realise opportunities in other sectors of the economy
    • opening up third level opportunities to those that previously opted to enter the workforce on leaving school and thereby ensuring we have the skills needed for the key growth sectors of the future, including in financial services, life-sciences, e-commerce and web-related services;
  • Continuing to invest for the longer term in the essential physical infrastructures that will enable high productivity to develop and grow including in next generation broadband networks and in relieving energy and transport bottlenecks;
  • Adjusting pay expectations to recognise price trends and maintaining flexibility in work practices as businesses adjust to changing market conditions;
  • Strengthening the commercialisation links between enterprises and the research system to ensure businesses in Ireland can respond quickly to changing international market demands for goods and services; and,
  • Accelerating progress on reducing the regulatory burden on enterprises by 25% across all of Government.

In conclusion he commented, “Ireland is a small country with the potential to be flexible and agile, and to work together towards a common goal. We have done this before and we can do it again, and today we have the benefit of a strong modern enterprise base, a competitive fiscal environment that rewards work and investment, improving infrastructure and a relatively young population. We have the capacity to build future success if we collectively address the critical issues arising from the global downturn.”


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