Irish economy - are there clouds ahead?

bearishbull said:
more jobs leaving ireland, thus time its creative labs in Blanchardstown

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1219/jobs.html
Click to expand...
There was a particularily funny line on RTÉ about Creative switching to lower cost economies and then mentioning Holland

In fairness, the news wasn't as bad as I feared. We're losing the manufacturing and logistics side but they're keeping the European HQ here, which is where the the higher earning jobs and tax Euros are. Using Ireland as a logistics centre for Europe is becoming more and more untenable given rising energy costs. As for manufacturing? There's no short-term future for it here unless it's making blockbuster drugs for the pharmaceuticals or high-end technology.

My fear is what's going to happen to this country in the long-run. Our financial services sector is being built on essentially a single foundation, low corporation tax. If this advantage is removed or even diminished, then we're in serious trouble.
 
It's a big worry and there's the precedent of the "Buy Irish" campaign alongside the tax-concessions to foreign manufacturing waaay back in the 1950's. Businesses came, built shabby environmentally- and socially-destructive hangars in the middle of nowhere, availed of unskilled Irish manual labour and then at the end of the tax-concession period moved on elsewhere, leaving nothing behind but demoralisation. Multinationals and globalisation are that much faster and more ruthless now. What remains after this contemporary version of that old, old story? Back to the question - what does Ireland have that's unique? An earlier poster said "spectrum technologies" but they are not (surely?) specifically Irish but rather a general IT phenomenon.
 
Marie said:
An earlier poster said "spectrum technologies" but they are not (surely?) specifically Irish but rather a general IT phenomenon.
Click to expand...

Not a general IT phenomenon but a precious natural resource which is used for all wireless information transmission.

Historic regulation of spectrum by government authorities the world over has led to a huge amount of inefficiency in its allocation. For example, much of the spectrum allocated to analogue TV remains unused and could be put to much better use. Many researchers are now suggesting adventurous dynamic spectrum allocation setups to perhaps avoid needing regulation at all - or at the very least cut down on the inefficient allocation process. This can take years and is not really practical for the fast paced technological era in which we find ourselves. However, spectrum allocation is not an area countries like to mess around with lightly.

Because we came quite late to the developed world, a lot of spectrum that has fallen into disuse in other countries was never even allocated in the first place here. We are also a small island nation and now a reasonably technologically adept one. This puts us in a great position to act as a testbed for other countries and researchers wanting to experiment in this arena.

Indeed ComReg are actively promoting this as an idea and have been very progressive in the area. It gives me (some) hope for the future.
 
room305 said:
Indeed ComReg are actively promoting this as an idea and have been very progressive in the area. It gives me (some) hope for the future.
Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiments and on the whole I think the agencies in Ireland do fantastic work in spite of the government.

Who could have watched George Lee's boom and not been proud of the IDA, they really were/are brilliant.

Unfortunately what has happened today is that people have forgotten the bad times and think prosperity is a right and that the government actually can do something to sustain it forever. So while these initiatives are important they cannot provide a bulwark to the coming** recession.

What the vast majority do not realise is that it was they (the people of Ireland at home and abroad) who by deciding that things were on the up became confident and started borrowing, spending and investing. They were the ones who started the Celtic tiger but ironically it will be they who decide that when things are no longer on the up that they no longer have the same confidence and begin to feel they should exercise prudence (laudable sentiment) that they will stop spending. This will be done to protect against a downturn but in cutting back they will precipitate it. And like everything in life the down will be as big as the up and thus will start the crash.


**no idea when
 
Interesting Irish Times front page story today

"ESRI warns economy could be on unsustainable path"
[broken link removed]

(it's in their free content so no need to be a subscriber to read it)
Key figures

Current A/C Deficit
2004 - 0.7% of GNP
2007 - 5.6% (!)
Inflation to peak at 6.1% in Jan '07
 

So the current course of the Irish economy is unsustainable, this would seem to infer that we have to change course. A change in course would require the government to take action to bring the ship of debt to a shuddering halt. The chances of this government taking any action to change from this untenable course are beyond remote, much easier to blame unforeseen and uncontrollable external forces; if and when we hit the rocks.
 

Expansion of the BES is a slight rudder deflection, but at least its in the right direction of fostering indiginous growth.

Mind you, it'd want to - GNP is on the slide.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1221/economy.html


Still over-reliant on MNC's then
 

Thanks for this background........yes, it does seem very hopeful if managed intelligently for the common good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register