Sir, – As another economist, may I say that, although correct in many respects, Morgan Kelly (Home News, August 8th) fails to see the implications of the problem that is being created under his academic nose. It is reflected in his “the only solution is to have a better educated-workforce than everybody else” thesis.
He means, of course, a better technically-trained (including in maths and the mechanics of English) workforce. He fails to see that the more we achieve, the more we do what the training of riders has done in the Irish horse-racing and show-jumping business. It has produced a surplus of Irish highly-trained riders who emigrate to earn middle-to-high incomes abroad, while immigrants earn low-to-middle incomes as Irish stableyard workers doing what highly-trained riders naturally avoid.
We have a similar situation occurring in the Irish farming, hospitality, catering, health and care (child and geriatric) businesses. All those things are happening despite our high birth rate.
In short, the more we facilitate third-level training of all sorts, the more we aggravate hugely our efforts to rid ourselves of the colossal budget burdens that are the legacy of the unsustainable pre-2008 boom. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t so facilitate. But we should give urgent thought to what to do about the aforementioned consequences. – Yours, etc,