IRELAND NEEDS to put itself back on the international map as a place of “trust and credibility”, President Mary McAleese told a PwC/Institute of Directors dinner in Dublin last night.

Ireland can create a story of a “remarkable bounce back from adversity” if it sees itself as a ship on which we all sail, and not “a scattered convoy”.

Addressing an audience of more than 150 senior business figures, she said that everything we do “in this hole that is largely of our own making,” will impact significantly on the next chapter in the story of Ireland. Mrs McAleese said the positive influence of business leaders was “especially crucial at a time when many are paralysed by negativity. It’s a mood that is fully understandable, given what we now know of unacceptable and reckless business practices in some quarters.”

Such stories should, however, “rather than conducing to a draining fatalism, it should provoke an energising determination within the business sector to rapidly restore trust”.

She said some of what existed during the Celtic Tiger era was “based on a dangerous mythology” but the full employment that had existed had created a sense of pride that people wanted back.

The generation represented at the dinner was one that had turned history on its head by ending widespread poverty,reversing mass emigration, attracting massive inward investment and constructing a peace “that had eluded every other generation”.

“We were shoved unceremoniously one step backwards” but Ireland must learn from its mistakes and want to be “defined by how we got out of this mess and not how we got into it”.

Business leaders “are uniquely placed to ensure . . . integrity and ethics are embedded deep within our business culture”.