At international economic conferences these days, where there is any detailed discussion of the European Union, the example of Ireland crops up regularly, even before any Irish representatives present have had the opportunity to say a word. That does not mean others always see us as we choose to see ourselves.
For example, with the periodic relocation of an individual labour-intensive industry to Asia or eastern Europe, and especially since the Irish Ferries dispute, there is a growing tendency to see Ireland as vulnerable to offshoring and outsourcing, and as a potential victim of globalisation. Speakers at the Munich Economic Summit - which met on May 4th to 5th and was attended by four members of the Oireachtas Joint Committees on Finance, and Enterprise and Small Business (Deputies Martin Brady, Kathleen Lynch and Ned O'Keeffe, and myself) - saw things quite differently.
Ireland is perceived as one of the great beneficiaries of offshoring and outsourcing and of having courageously adopted a liberal migration policy vis-à-vis the 10 accession countries that entered the EU in May 2004.
For several decades now, the Irish economy has been powered by inward investment in manufacturing and more recently international financial services. Famous companies that appear almost daily in the world's financial press have branches or European headquarters in Ireland. Despite little involvement in heavy engineering industry, the manufacture of parts is outsourced here.
Our corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent maximises revenue, rather than forgoes it, in contrast to Estonia's zero retained-profit tax. We are in no race to the bottom.
French newspapers, in a country where fears about job security recently had students on the streets, occasionally carry features on the different work culture in Ireland. A full-page article by a special correspondent in Le Figaro on April 17th praised the flexibility of employment and the ease of establishing a business in Ireland. "Nobody asks you for diplomas, guarantees, deposits. No massive documentation to fill up. . . In Ireland, they have grasped that everything is provisional. Ephemeral. Like life itself. But they are no longer prurient about it. Because they have discovered that the flexibility of the labour market is the sole protection of jobs. Firms disappear? Others are created. Basic jobs are outsourced? More modern and better-paid sectors take their place."
The Employment Permits Bill, sponsored by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Michéal Martin, which creates a system of green cards and work permits for non-EU migrants, is a piece of labour legislation in a great tradition going back to 1946. It is based on the report of a Forfás Expert Group on Future Skills Needs. The legislation brings order to what was a somewhat chaotic process in the Celtic Tiger years. Greater protection for employee rights will minimise the risk of exploitation that is damaging not just to those directly affected. The system, which is tailored for our needs, is not EU-dictated but devised by ourselves.
The partnership talks also offer the prospect of a lot of progress, which can be refined in the light of experience through ongoing dialogue.
Speakers in Munich believed, like the EU Commission, that Britain, Ireland and Sweden had been vindicated by their decision to open their jobs market to the accession countries. Continental countries with high unemployment can still be hampered by skills shortages. A liberal migration policy minimises any skills and labour bottlenecks.
Many migrants send back remittances, or save in order to have the capital to start a business when they go home. If they had less freedom to come here, some business would inevitably be relocated elsewhere.
It is important to know which side our bread is buttered on. A chart in Munich showed that between 1991 and 2004, manufacturing jobs had increased by 25 per cent in Ireland, but had fallen in most developed countries.
Confidence in what we have achieved and what we can achieve is important for continuing progress. Harnessing the forces of globalisation, not pulling them back, will give us the best results. We should not be overly defensive. As Catherine Day, the second successive Irish secretary general of the European Commission, told the Forum on Europe in an excellent presentation on Thursday, the EU can help provide a response to the challenge.
Just as in Ireland, many a haulage company would not survive without its Polish drivers, so in the United States much of the economy would grind to a halt, if millions of undocumented migrant workers, including those from Ireland, were abruptly removed from the labour force. A constructive solution that regularises the situation there will have better economic effects all round.
A liberal immigration system is complemented here by a more rigorous approach to asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom are seeking a better life rather than fleeing persecution.
The St Patrick's Cathedral authorities, the Garda and the Government all handled the Afghan sit-in and hunger-strike in an exemplary fashion, and brought it to an end without loss of life, resort to force and without setting unhelpful precedents that might encourage copycat actions.
Naturally, discussion with mediators is always needed to break a deadlock, not for the purposes of striking a deal, but simply to clarify uncertainty about further process, if the action is given up. Our system, though criticised at home, is far from being summary and draconian, as the UN High Commission on Refugees acknowledged last week, which is not to say that it is incapable of improvement.
One of the heartening experiences of the week was a ride in Dublin in a taxi driven by a hard-working and prosperous-looking young Vietnamese refugee, given asylum here as a child in the late 1970s. Despite some early difficulties, he acknowledged that this country has treated him well.
Like America, but on a much smaller scale, we are discovering that Ireland can be a land of opportunity for ourselves and others, but without losing our character as a social-market economy.