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Junkets can’t obscure what needs to be done
14 March 2010
The annual exodus of ministers around the globe for St Patrick’s Day generally provokes routine denunciations of politicians for supposed high living at taxpayers’ expense.
There is little doubt that the political and mandarin classes rewarded themselves with high pay, appealing perks and comfortable conditions in the long years of prosperity. Many St Patrick’s Day trips were unnecessarily lavish, overly expensive and of dubious benefit to Ireland.
But the government has taken steps to cut back, and the annual festival of the national saint remains a priceless opportunity for a tiny country to speak to the world. The opportunity should be grasped with both hands. On the whole, the exodus is a good idea.
Ministers will use the trips principally as an opportunity to advertise Ireland’s attractiveness as a destination for inward investment.
They will emphasise our young, educated and English-speaking population, our low corporation tax rate, our membership of the European Union and our business-friendly political climate.
All these things need to be nurtured, and cannot be taken for granted. We have learned in recent weeks that our educational standards are threatened, and we need to take corrective action in the form of more rigorous standards in our third-level institutions.
We are an open economy and, as the global economic recovery gathers pace, we should be positioned to take advantage of the uplift. That is what the government is about this week, and it is time well spent.
However, ministers must not lose sight of the indigenous small and medium-sized business sector. Government policy is now so clearly oriented towards winning foreign investment and accommodating the Intels of the world that it is in danger of ignoring the engine of the domestic economy.
These are the thousands of small businesses that are being strangled by the lack of credit from the banks; that are struggling to make ends meet because costs are not falling as quickly as income; that have, in many cases, invested years of personal toil in their businesses.
They sustain communities all over Ireland, providing employment - often the part-time employment that helps many families make ends meet - and the services that enable the economy, as a whole, to work.
They deserve more attention from government than they sometimes get. They are worthy of some of the attention being lavished this week on the technology gurus of Silicon Valley, or the engineering titans of Westphalia, or the masters of the universe on Wall Street.
The government is right to use the opportunity to pitch for Ireland on St Patrick’s Day.
But it should bat for small business in Ireland all year round.
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