The bigwigs in Government and those paid to promote Ireland Inc love to wax lyrical about Ireland’s business “ecosystem” and how attractive we are to do business with, but a report this week laid bare the problems we face.
The almost 100-page review by the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council on Irish competitiveness painted a picture of continuing decline, even though we still place relatively highly in international rankings for now.
The council has big concerns that Ireland’s competitiveness is being eroded – and eroded quickly. That poses problems, because if we are less competitive then we are less attractive for companies to make or retain investments in.
Further to this, while many of Ireland’s headline economic indicators paint a very rosy picture, the council believes that underneath the bonnet is an economy under a lot more pressure than appears at first glance.
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The key issue is infrastructure – and we’re not talking about high-speed broadband here. Cantillon has heard of a number of business investments having to be shelved due to issues with access to basic stuff like water and electricity.
What sort of message does that send back to corporate headquarters across the Atlantic? Certainly, it is not the type of thing you think about when an advanced western European economy comes to mind.
Another concern in council circles is the sense that regulators operate in splendid isolation whereby different arms of the State are in effect working against each other.
Some situations have emerged whereby foreign workers – often in construction – have arrived on Irish shores and been provided with work permits by one arm of the State but have not had their visas processed in time by another, and the permits have been withdrawn. Make it make sense.
[ Ireland’s infrastructure is 32% behind international peers, IMF findsOpens in new window ]
On the planning side, while the number of planners at An Coimisiún Pleanála has grown, a lot of these were drafted in from the local government system, so it was more a rearranging of the deck chairs rather than any real increase in overall capacity.
There is a sense in the council that all this is creating reputational damage for Ireland abroad at an already challenging time. If you make yourself less competitive, someone else will come along and eat your lunch.
