A No vote risks Ireland's reputation as a location of choice for foreign firms keen to invest, writes PÁDRAIC WHITE
ONE OF the major contributors to Ireland's economic transformation has been foreign investment, in great scale and quality.
It has boosted our exports - accounting for more than 80 per cent of manufactured exports - and provided high quality jobs for hundreds of thousands of young people emerging from third level colleges, former emigrants returning to Ireland and for those returning to the workforce, particularly women.
Foreign firms provided opportunities in growth sectors such as financial services, internet based enterprises, information and communications technologies, and medical technologies. The €16 billion which they spend in Ireland each year on salaries, services and goods trickles down to every county, supporting business and jobs. Moreover, the €3 billion they pay in corporation tax enables the Government to supplement revenues needed for social and medical services in Ireland.
Foreign companies are here because we provide a more attractive location than elsewhere in Europe based on our skilled workforce, efficient support services, a low corporate tax rate of 12½ per cent and our committed membership of the European Union.
The Lisbon Treaty fully maintains our sovereign right to decide on our own corporate taxes as did the previous treaties. But that has not prevented some among the No side from attempting to sow doubts and confusion in the minds of voters. As someone who was privileged to have spent 20 years of my career in IDA Ireland promoting Ireland as a location for the world's best foreign firms, let me say clearly that there is nothing in the treaty which alters control over our 12½ per cent tax rate or our ability to promote foreign investment.
A key part of Ireland's attraction for investors was their view of the State as a committed, and indeed enthusiastic, member of the EU.
I recall that immediately after the massive Irish vote in May 1972 to join the EEC, the IDA developed an international advertising and promotion campaign to promote the country as a member of the community and with full access to its huge market. We were no longer to be seen as an island close to the UK but an integral and full member of the European community in our own right.
Since then, Irish governments have been the first to adopt new EU directives into law, particularly in financial services, where Ireland can capitalise on offering the EU wide access which the new directives provide.
But if it happened that when the votes are counted on Friday, we reject the treaty, then I foresee real risks to the State's reputation as a preferred location in the EU for foreign investment.
I do not say this lightly - it flows from the following reasoning: The treaty has to be ratified by all 27 member states. The ratification in the other 26 member states will be by their parliaments, and with their governments all favouring the treaty, the likelihood is that these other 26 member states will all say Yes.
If Ireland votes No, and the treaty falls solely because of us, what then? For a start, the work of member states and governments since December 2001 when the decision was originally made to establish the European Convention to revise the EU treaties, would be set at nought - that is over seven years of negotiations by member states, most recently led by German chancellor Angela Merkel.
The Irish Government, representing the sole country that rejected the treaty, would be in no position to renegotiate it. The likelihood would be that Ireland, as the isolated naysayer in Europe, would be less involved as other member states sought ways of taking the European project forward.
Bear in mind that a key motivation for the treaty was to adjust the workings of the EU institutions to accommodate an EU of 27 member states. Ireland would be seen as the single country responsible for frustrating the desire of all the other member states to modernise the union. Moreover, the sevenyear effort to adapt the treaties would be stalled with no obvious way forward after such an Irish vote.
I fear that the opinion formers and the business leaders in most of the 26 other member states would interpret the Irish decision very negatively and that we would lose valuable goodwill - and goodwill towards Ireland is influential in securing investment.
For the international investing community, I fear that Ireland's reputation as a strong and enthusiastic pro-European member would be replaced with a reputation as a Eurosceptic member and one which had brought to a halt efforts to modernise the EU to accommodate 27 members. Such a change in Ireland's reputation would not be conducive to our foreign investment promotion.
Some people are genuinely confused by the arguments in the debate so far and in these circumstances would regard a No vote as the more prudent option. Others may regard the Lisbon vote as an opportunity to express dissatisfaction with some aspect of domestic policy or with the Government.
My aim is to try and illuminate some of the consequences of a No vote as I judge them, so that we exercise our democratic choice in a fuller knowledge of the consequences.
Padraic White is a former managing director of IDA Ireland and is member of the Irish Alliance for Europe campaign group and the Business Alliance for Europe