Since 2003 the United States has become Ireland's largest export market, displacing Britain, writes Martin Mansergh
The US is also the source of most of the multilateral investment, which, as the report of the Enterprise Strategy Group notes, was "the engine of Ireland's growth in the 1990s".
That investment is, of course, based on Ireland's full membership of the EU, with the added advantage of being part of the eurozone. The US is also the source of much of the high-value tourism that comes to Ireland, even if it does not head the list in terms of numbers.
Through Chuck Feeney's Atlantic Foundation and other benefactors like the Glucksmanns, an inestimable contribution has been made to raising the level of Irish third-level education.
Because of all these factors, it is not surprising that Ireland today should tend to track the US economy, rather than the British one or the eurozone, where the economy in certain countries remains sluggish.
The economic relationship is not one-way. There is substantial Irish investment in the US. Irish people feel welcome and at home in the United States, whether going to work, study, teach or simply visit.
Ireland has helped build America, just as America has been Ireland's most significant backer, both in the lead-up to independence, post-second World War and, more intensively still, from the mid-1980s.
Despite the special relationship between Britain and the US, Ireland and the US have a common historical experience. Both cast off British rule, the Scots-Irish being at the forefront of the struggle. In a recent interview with the Irish News (July 17th), Bill Clinton said that, while he was of Scots-Irish Presbyterian extraction, he felt he had more in common with Irish Catholics.
For most countries, the relationship with the only surviving superpower is important. Ireland receives attention in Washington beyond its size or weight, whereas other countries such as, for example, Sri Lanka have difficulty attracting any significant US attention.
Despite our friendship and interdependence with the US, we are an independent country with our own values. Indeed, the absence of a military relationship, apart from the benign but fairly nebulous Partnership for Peace, removes one possible source of tension from the relationship.
With UN backing for a sovereign Iraq and the multinational force since June, any argument about the current use of Shannon is over.
We have a strong attachment to multilateralism and the international rule of law, but have to accept that in some situations force may be used as a last resort. UN peacekeeping is unfortunately not the complete answer to all the world's conflicts. The lesson of our own peace process is that most destructive forces and ideologies can be tamed, and that a Manichean world view of good and evil can itself be a source of endless conflict.
Long ago the crusades showed how holy intentions could degenerate into disaster. The post-mortems into the justification for the war in Iraq present a sorry picture, even if few mourn the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Both Ireland and other European countries can maintain the integrity of their world view without falling into crude anti-Americanism. As a Democratic congressman commented wryly to me, anti-Bush demonstrations only strengthen him at home and underpin his administration's determination not to depend on unreliable friends and allies.
Jane Ki Fort, a diplomat who played an important role in Belfast and Dublin over the last six years in support of the peace process, but who also led the US embassy during a prolonged interregnum between ambassadors and defended with moderation the US position on Iraq, goes back to an interesting job in Washington this month.
By all accounts, John Bruton is to be appointed EU ambassador in Washington.
After all the plaudits for Ireland's EU presidency, it is only fair to praise the outstanding European advocacy of three Fine Gael leaders, John Bruton, Alan Dukes and Garret FitzGerald.
This summer is the season of appointments: John Murray with his AG's and European Court experience to Chief Justice; Seán Aylward's move from director of the Prison Service to secretary-general of the Department of Justice, where he succeeds one of the State's great public servants and key figures of the peace process, Tim Dalton; and, finally, Charlie McCreevy to the commissionership in Brussels.
McCreevy has been an outstanding Finance Minister, which is not to say that he did everything right. He is a successful politician, not a rigid right-wing ideologue. High growth, full employment, lower public debt, the much fairer tax-credit system, the decisive shift from a high-tax economy to a low-tax one, the generation of vast revenue to fund better services, his contribution to maintaining social partnership, bringing the economy on to safe ground these last two years and the funding of future pension liabilities are his legacies. His slashing of tribunal costs could perhaps be only a parting shot. It is not economic policy that needs to be changed. Rather, its fruits need to be better used.
His likely successor, Brian Cowen, will be a tough, no-nonsense finance minister, who will concentrate on basics, low inflation and value for money, without frills or follies.
He is not over-impressed by the trappings of wealth, whether inherited or newly acquired. The families on the council estates, communities that badly need better services, those working hard to make a living will be the focus of attention because, while the fall in consistent poverty is welcome, relative inequality must be kept within bounds for the sake of social cohesion.
We need to be more sober about where we stand. As the Enterprise Strategy Group shows, in terms of GNP (2003), we have reached the EU-15 average, ahead of the Mediterranean and cohesion countries, but still in 12th position, even if now poised to overtake more of our partners. We cannot afford to relax.