THE Irish economy may be losing up to 1 per cent of its Gross National Product or £300 million a year from anti-competitive practices, the secretary of the Department of Enterprise and Employment, Mr Kevin Bonner, told the conference.
Mr Bonner said anti competitive practices must be shaken out where they occur. "While the marketplace may sort out the laggards in the traded economy, there are clear areas where cosy markets exist, where true competition is prevented due to geography, entry restrictions or scale considerations," he said.
He added there were also areas where cartel like arrangements resulted in excessive returns to those selling services. The net impact was that operating our economy could carry cost burdens in excess of those found elsewhere.
"There are estimates that the Irish economy may be losing up to 1 per cent of GNP equating to £300 million a year frog anti-competitive practices," he stated.
Mr Bonner said vigorous application of competition law would augment market forces to ensure that prices were not inflated. "By ensuring competition in our own market place, our firms will be better prepared to deal with competition in foreign market places," he stated.
Mr Bonner said that Ireland is not a slave to economic cycles and adding that said that people who question our capacity to continuously grow and cite inevitable downturns in economic cycles are fatalists.
On employment, Mr Bonner said there would be some tightening of the labour market, but this would be short term and specific to sectors or occupations. "The reality in our economy is that labour supply problems are very unlikely to constrain our growth. This is because we have a considerable latent labour force which will respond to vacancies as they arise. Our small size and trading orientation will also help prevent domestic consumption capacity from constraining growth," he stated.
Stating that Irelad Ireland is not doomed to a downturn, Mr Bonner warned that we will have to find ways of reaching a new level of national competitiveness. We need to think much more long term in our planing and strategic processes, he added.
