ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE MANCHESTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, TOWN HALL
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE TO THE MANCHESTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, TOWN HALL, MANCHESTER
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is a particular pleasure for me to accept your kind invitation to address the members of this Chamber of Commerce and Industry on my visit to Manchester. Among your number are many people of Irish birth or descent, and many others who have contributed to the success of the economic links that bind our two countries. I am delighted to have this opportunity to acknowledge and encourage that contribution today.
The story of Ireland’s profound economic transformation is now well known internationally, and it is not without particular relevance for Manchester, which has long had close links with Ireland.
Ireland’s young population is now growing up in a dynamic and self-confident nation, fully at home in Europe, equally comfortable with its neighbours across the Atlantic to the West, an outward looking country with as good a story to tell as it has ever known in its history. The economy is successful, advanced and sophisticated. Cultural life is richly veined, dynamic and innovative. The mood is up-beat and achievement-oriented. There are more people at work than ever before, more people in education, more foreign and indigenous investment and a level of prosperity few could have envisaged even a decade ago.
For the past one hundred and fifty years we have been an emigrant people, many forced to leave through poverty and the politics of poverty, in search of a better life in places such as Manchester. Today, we are proud of the contribution those emigrants made to their new homelands, but at the time, their going and the aftermath of the experience of colonialism drained our national psyche of energy and self-belief. Now the story is very different. In modern Ireland, intangible assets such as individual and collective empowerment abound, and though they may not feature on any list of key economic indicators, they have been important drivers of our economic growth and our cultural self-confidence.
As many of you know, our economic growth has been impressive by any standards and since statistics are dear to the heart of any Chamber of Commerce, I thought I might dwell on this aspect for a moment or two.
Ireland has had the fastest growing economy in the European Union in recent years, and we are now in our seventh year of sustained growth. In concrete terms, our real GDP growth averaged over 9.24% per annum during that period. The economy is expected to grow strongly again this year, although at a somewhat slower rate.
Between 1993 and 1999, the total number of people at work in Ireland increased by nearly half a million to a total of 1.7 million - the highest number in the history of the State. As a result, unemployment, long one of our most intractable economic and social problems, fell to 3.8%, a figure some describe as in effect full employment.
The unprecedented economic growth has enabled the Government to dramatically reduce Government Debt and Ireland now has one of the lowest public debt ratios among the Members States of the European Union.
This performance is underpinned by strong economic fundamentals including a falling tax burden, favourable demographics with growing numbers of well-educated young workers, continuing foreign direct investment and increasing infrastructural investment.
This economic success has had a profound effect on Irish life. I mentioned that emigration on any large scale is now a thing of the past. In fact, we now have net immigration into Ireland as Irish people return to take up jobs and an increasing number of non-nationals come to Ireland. Last year some 45,000 people came to Ireland, half of them returning Irish people, half non-nationals seeking opportunities in our booming economy.
This rapid and sustained economic growth has brought a fresh and invigorating confidence to many aspects of Irish life, to our young people, to our entrepreneurs to the Irish business community in general and to the broad spectrum of civic life.
Despite the increasing diversification of our exports, Britain continues to be our second biggest export customer, just behind the United States. And it is by far the biggest market for our indigenous exports. While traditional sectors such as agricultural exports remain important, the fastest growing trade sectors today are in electronics, information technology, software and telecommunications.
It is worth pointing out that the benefits in our economic relationship with Britain are not all in one direction. Our trade with each other amounts to a massive £16 billion a year. Many people are surprised to hear that Ireland is Britain’s fifth largest customer in the world, and that every Irish consumer buys seven times more British goods than consumers in the other countries of the European Union. What this shows is that we are, and will remain, extremely important economic partners.
The question that everyone asks, is what has happened in Ireland to bring about this apparently sudden transformation in our economic well-being? The answer is that no one single thing was the Holy Grail but a number of key interlocking factors have been essential building blocks.
Among them, membership of the European Union has undoubtedly helped us to substantially develop and diversify our political, economic and trade relations. As a direct consequence of our EU membership, Ireland has become one of the most open economies in the world. Indeed in per capita terms, Ireland is now the world’s third largest exporter and, believe it or not, the world’s largest exporter of computer software, having overtaken the United States - a fascinating statistic for a population of less then four million people.
Many commentators believe that investment in education has been one of the critical building blocks of change. As a country with little in the way of natural mineral resources, our greatest natural resource lies in the applied brain-power, the genius of our people. Harvesting that became the goal and education was the combine harvester. Successive governments recognised the need to invest in the young people of the country, to give them both the skills and the confidence necessary to play their part in bringing Ireland into the information age - and to bring the rest of us with them! Our well-educated and well-trained youth became a beacon attracting new industries to Ireland and the value attached to education has not been diminished by our recent success. If anything, our success has made us even more keenly aware how central that investment in education is: education now accounts for 28% of all Government spending and over 60% of school leavers continue on to third level education. We are also aware, of course, that at the other end of the spectrum there are still many problems to be tackled, including unacceptably high rates of illiteracy, early school leaving and serious under-representation of poor children at third-level, their life’s chances seriously inhibited from early childhood. In other words there is still a considerable distance to go in harvesting our full human potential. This generation faces the challenge of nurturing and drawing out that potential with levels of insight and resource other generations did not have - so therein lies our hope and our mandate. We can see what we have already accomplished when firing on less then the full complement of cylinders.
A third key building block in the transformation of our economy has been the system of social partnership we developed, through which the significant stakeholding constituencies such as employers, trade unions and the voluntary sector came together with the Government to agree industrial and economic development, taxation and social priorities. The consensus hammered out by the social partners has brought about a sense of national cohesion directed towards the achievement of clearly defined economic and social goals. The success we enjoy today has a broadbased public ownership.
The factors I have outlined are not in themselves a complete explanation for the success of the Irish economy, but without them the story would be very different. Together they helped to gather a fresh momentum and to provoke a remarkable capacity for change.
That spirit of change and that capacity to absorb change are characteristics which are shaping not just the economy but Irish Society generally. Many thousands of people from various nationalities now work and live in Ireland. They bring with them their cultures, languages, faiths and their identities. The richness of the diversity they bring adds to the reimaging of Ireland to itself and to the world.
We take particular pride and hope in the transformation in the temper of relationships between these two islands. Today the two sovereign governments in Dublin and Westminster work together collegially and respectfully, partners in Europe, partners in the search for lasting peace in Northern Ireland. We know that partnership will help to bring not just the peace and prosperity the people of Northern Ireland so deeply desire and deserve, but a healthier and more mature, more humanly decent set of relationships between the peoples of these neighbouring islands and these are gifts from which we will all benefit in the years ahead.
For British business, the opportunities to participate in Ireland’s dynamic economy, to capture this new mood, are extensive, particularly in the enormous challenge of developing Ireland’s infrastructure and utilities as they gallop to catch up. No other generation in Ireland and Britain has enjoyed such a developed friendship as this one. No other generation has had the prospect of harnessing all the old energies that formerly went into conflict or were suppressed by it. These are indeed good times to be talking to each other and listening to each other. I wish you well in all you do to build on these times and to make the very best of them for Manchester and for all of us and for our children. Thank you.