The Enterprise Strategy Group has presented a lucid analysis of the challenges facing the economy and a coherent plan for dealing with them. There is little in its 150 pages that will upset the wide consensus that industrial policy must focus on niches in which we can compete in the fast changing global market for goods and services.
The five areas in which the group believes we have, or can develop, a competitive advantage that will allow us exploit these niches are not likely to be challenged. Equally, its argument that a number of conditions have to be met before these competitive advantages can be realised is not controversial.
The report is in effect a road map for getting to a place where there is broad agreement we want to go. It is a vision of an economy which is as strong at developing and selling products and services as it currently is in the manufacture of goods and the provision of services. This, the report argues, is the best protection against the erosion of the competitive advantages that propelled the economy over the last 10 years.
The strategy group has made some 52 separate recommendations on how to do this. They range from research and development funding to including entrepreneurial studies on the Leaving Certificate syllabus.
Implementing the strategy in full would put the enterprise agenda at the very heart of Government. No major decision would be taken without its implications for what it terms as Ireland Inc being taken into account. This would happen in a very overt way via the proposed twice yearly cabinet meetings dedicated to enterprise and, more subtly, via reform of the way universities are governed and such like.
It should not be assumed that there is widespread agreement that this is the basis on which the state should be governed. As the recent public spat between various members of the Cabinet indicates, there is a sizable body of opinion that an over-attachment to economic shibboleths such as low tax rates may be misguided, particularly if they lead to an erosion of social cohesion.
The Tánaiste, who is the sponsor of the Enterprise Strategy Group, is clearly alive to this and made it clear yesterday that there was no guarantee that her Government colleagues would sign up to the report and its recommendations.
She has reiterated her own position - and that of the Minister for Finance - that social inclusion depends on economic success. But it remains to be seen if she can bring the Cabinet around to her way of thinking, particularly given her desire to give up the Enterprise, Trade and Employment portfolio in the coming reshuffle.
The successful implementation of the strategy set out in yesterday's report will require the building of a broad consensus that it is the most viable route to sustained economic prosperity. Some of its conclusions are taken as given in today's economic environment. Others would benefit from stimulating some debate.