REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT A BUSINESS BREAKFAST IN CARDIFF
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, MARY McALEESE AT A BUSINESS BREAKFAST IN CARDIFF ON TUESDAY, 3rd DECEMBER 2002
Dia dhíbh ar maidin, anseo i gCaerdydd. Tá mé an-buíoch díbh as an cuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
Bora Dah.
I am delighted to be here with you this morning in Cardiff and to have this opportunity to meet with so many Welsh business leaders. Your attendance is a good indication of the economic vibrancy of Cardiff in particular and Wales in general, and shows your interest in promoting greater cooperation and trade links across the Irish Sea - an interest that is matched by a growing interest among Irish business people in further developing trade and commercial links with Wales.
Already the wide range of products and services that are traded between our two countries is considerable - from chemicals and high technology equipment to food and internationally traded services. So we meet not as strangers but as old friends, neighbours and business acquaintances.
In economic terms, Ireland and Wales have experienced a broadly similar pattern of economic development, though at different points in time. Both our nations were predominantly agricultural economies on the western margins of Europe, though Wales had the advantage of taking part in the First Industrial Revolution, which most of Ireland managed to miss. Today it is the contemporary technological revolution which is transforming both our countries and we meet as dynamic industrial and export-led nations, our focus outward to the European Union and to the wider global market place. Our fortunes have changed partly as a result of imaginative and vigorous government policies to invest very deliberately in education and training, encouraging inward investment and stimulating local enterprise and partly as a result of our own openness to change, our hunger for opportunity widely distributed among our people and our determination that the future will be the best we can make it.
Wales realised long since the importance of attracting international investment in building up a strong and competitive industrial base. You have a long industrial, manufacturing and mining tradition, a strong work ethic, an increasingly highly educated workforce and an advantageous location. In Ireland, we are in no doubt as to the attractiveness of Wales for overseas investment for we sometimes find ourselves in competition when trying to attract world-class industries. Thankfully we each have our respective success stories on that front and we each have a deep respect for the strengths of the other. Harnessing those strengths in partnership with each other is an important key to riding out the vagaries of global economic trends and staying strong, growing more successful in spite of them.
Although the recent slowdown of growth in the European Union and the United States casts a shadow over the global economic forecasts, the modern Irish economy continues to be one of the fastest growing in the world. This is driven by a strong export performance. We are, in every sense, a trading nation and we rely substantially on net foreign earnings to maintain growth, create national wealth, improve living standards and provide employment.
The most remarkable feature of this export performance is that it has happened within such a relatively short time. Just twenty-five years ago, Ireland’s total annual export earnings amounted to the equivalent of less than €500 million – that is less than 1% of what we currently export. Back then our exports were made up predominantly of agricultural commodities, with little or no value-added and they mostly went to the U.K.
Those of us who grew up in Ireland in the 1950s can remember the bleak prospect that faced many families and that forced tens of thousands to take the boat to Scotland, England or Wales or to depart for North America or the New World ‘down-under’. The talent and potential that was lost to Ireland had a profoundly debilitating effect on the nation, one that has taken a generation to overcome.
The Ireland of thirty years ago - just before we joined the European Economic Community was one where 36% of the workforce was engaged in agriculture - now that figure is less than 8% and over 90% of the Irish workforce are engaged in industry and services. Then unemployment levels exceeded twenty percent – today they are down to 4 per cent and the tide of emigration has reversed for the first time in one hundred and fifty years as emigrants return from abroad and foreign nationals come to Ireland in search of opportunity.
The Irish economy has enjoyed continuous growth for more than a decade, averaging over 8% a year over the past five years, although it is true that we are now facing a period of lower, but perhaps more sustainable growth.
Wales has attracted significant Irish investment in areas ranging from food processing and a customer contact centre to construction and property development. Locating in Wales provides ready access to the wider British market and with devolved administration, the regulatory environment is seen as increasingly “business-friendly” and decentralised. In tourism, I know that there are plenty of potential projects for cooperation including one involving Dun Laoghaire, Holyhead and the Newry and Mourne District in Northern Ireland. As a person with strong links with Co. Down and a long history of holidaying in Wales this is certainly a project I would like to see succeed.
Both Ireland and Wales have been hit hard by the effects on traveller confidence in the aftermath of September 11th. Yet as neighbours, tourism flows between us are less prone to fluctuations arising from the international security situation. Tourism Ireland, which is the new all-Ireland organisation for the promotion of tourism, sees very real and ongoing potential in Wales, and Britain generally. I know that the promotion of Wales at home in Ireland has increased significantly in recent times and hope this will bring about an increasing flow of people in both directions, and not only in the pursuit of our traditional rugby encounters!
The EU-funded INTERREG Ireland-Wales cross-border programme for 2000 to 2006 provides an excellent framework for developing the dynamic Celtic rim which some of us dare to dream of. Our cultural closeness, our physical closeness have already combined with our shared good economic sense to create a developing network of partners who are devising exciting proposals to make a dent in the £40 million that is available. We are seeing the emergence of a new imagination for links between us, and for leveraging together a real advantage from our similarities and our closeness. Soon an enlarged Europe will present us with new opportunities and new competitors. The more developed our neighbourly relationships at every level, the better placed we will be to face down the challenges and make the best of the opportunities.
May the children of Wales and Ireland be able to say we used these days well and gave them the best Wales the best Ireland any generation has ever known.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.
Diolch yn fawr iawn.