17 leading business people submit blueprint for recovery

Brendan Burgess

Founder
Messages
53,399
Group of 17 leading figures submits blueprint for recovery

from Simon Carswell in today's Irish Times:


 
That is a pretty impressive group taking from the left and the right of the political divide as well as very successful business people.
 
Looking forward to seeing the content of this report I must say. Hope it gets published soon.


Looks promising and interesting that prominent members of the left/protested industries are calling for even more cuts than the Snip Nua report...it's starting to be obvious to most now the kind of cuts we need.

I found the following snippet particularly interesting:

"Among the targets suggested is that 20 per cent of foreign direct investment should be sourced from south east Asia by 2015."

We are very heavily dependant on US multi-nationals. They have served us well in the past but like our historic dependancy on the UK we need to diversify further.
 
More than 200,000 jobs can be created, the group argues, by developing five sectors – manufacturing, tourism, agriculture, life sciences and information and communications technology.
While the devil is in the detail this does sound like attention grabbing. Government cannot create a single job, all it can do is improve the environment for private businesses to operate in, and that simply means lowering the burden the state places on businesses through taxation. But I don't think they wrote 38 pages on just saying that.
So, I would bet on the plan including lots of "government investment" and "stimulation" of certain industries,which basically means taking money out of one pocket (at the same time dropping some) to put in the other and claiming to be wealthier for it. Saying that, I do like the comments about NAMA, government spending cuts and BoI and AIB.
Anyway, I'll reserve judgment and would be very very happy to be proven wrong.

The article says that the report is private, anyone hear if or when this will be made available to the public?
 
That's the second time this shower have come out with this 'plan'. It's basically the FG election campaign.

And whose on the 'left' - not Spring surely!
 
It’s a very impressive list of people.
Peter Sutherland is the most successful Irish businessman ever. When he was Chairman of BP it was worth nearly a quarter of a trillion pounds. He’s a former attorney general, a qualified barrister, he’s been appointed as an economic advisor to places as diverse as Hong Kong to the Vatican and he’s heavily involved with the UN. He’s also been involved at board level with Goldman Sachs, RBS and ABB. He was also Chairman of GATT (now the World Trade Organisation).
 
Opinions on A Blueprint for Ireland’s Recovery?

[broken link removed]

I notice this article in today's Irish Times and wondered what people opinions are on it?
 
[broken link removed]

I notice this article in today's Irish Times and wondered what people opinions are on it?

Can't really have an opinion when its being kept private, can we?
 
I wonder is there much mention of tax avoidance in their patriotic proposals?

Maybe if a few of them choose to pay their taxes in ireland and set an example to the thousands of others who don't. That might be more of a help.
 
I wonder is there much mention of tax avoidance in their patriotic proposals?

Maybe if a few of them choose to pay their taxes in ireland and set an example to the thousands of others who don't. That might be more of a help.

Or maybe Ireland should stop punishing success by imposing punitive taxes on wealthy people. Why not lower taxation on wealthy people and attract more of them in order to take in more revenue? It has been proven time and again that increased taxation in the long run results in lower revenue.
 
I wonder is there much mention of tax avoidance in their patriotic proposals?

Maybe if a few of them choose to pay their taxes in ireland and set an example to the thousands of others who don't. That might be more of a help.

Who are you talking about here? Irish emigrants? Or people who live in Ireland that don't pay taxes here?
 
Who are you talking about here? Irish emigrants? Or people who live in Ireland that don't pay taxes here?

Irish people living here but paying their taxes elsewhere.

They are bringing undue attention to themselves calling for people to take cuts etc while they decide to pay taxes outside the country.
 
Irish people living here but paying their taxes elsewhere.
If you live in Ireland you are liable to income tax in Ireland regardless of where your income comes from. The only way you can be paying taxes elsewhere is if you spend less than a certain amount of days in this country.

Do we actually do that? Rich people have it fairly good here i would think.

Do you call a 53% marginal rate a good deal when about 50% of people pay no income tax at all? If rich people had it good here then Ireland would be attracting wealthy individuals rather than losing them to countries like Switzerland, Hong Kong or the UAE.
 
I think Perter Sutherland as former Independent Non-Executive Director, Member of Nominations Committee and Member of Remuneration Committee of the Royal Bank of Scotlant is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
 
I think Perter Sutherland as former Independent Non-Executive Director, Member of Nominations Committee and Member of Remuneration Committee of the Royal Bank of Scotlant is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Would this be the same Peter Sutherland who called for cutbacks in public sector spending while enjoying his €50k p.a. pension from his short spell as Attorney General?
 
Would this be the same Peter Sutherland who called for cutbacks in public sector spending while enjoying his €50k p.a. pension from his short spell as Attorney General?

Doesn't mean he can't offer his opinion.

Also, are you saying the pensions for public servants are too generous?
 
Would this be the same Peter Sutherland who called for cutbacks in public sector spending while enjoying his €50k p.a. pension from his short spell as Attorney General?

Maybe the ridiculousness of such a pension has helped form his opinion!
 
Doesn't mean he can't offer his opinion.
Maybe he should offer his pension before offering his opinion?
Also, are you saying the pensions for public servants are too generous?
The pension that he and 'retireing' Ministers availed of bears little relationship to the standard public servant pension. Nissan Micra Vs a Bentley.

Maybe the ridiculousness of such a pension has helped form his opinion!
Indeed - but would you not expect somebody in his position to practice what they preach?