REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT LUNCH WITH THE HONORARY CONSUL, 6TH APRIL 1999
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT LUNCH WITH THE HONORARY CONSUL, 6TH APRIL 1999
Before speaking on some current economic issues, I would like to express our warmest thanks and appreciation to you, Mr. Honorary Consul for your many years of devoted service to Ireland. Your sustained and highly effective contribution to a deeper understanding in Mexico of Ireland and all things Irish has been inestimable and is, I assure you, enormously valued. Your kindness in hosting today’s lunch in my honour once again demonstrates clearly your longstanding commitment to the promotion of closer relations between Ireland and Mexico. I thank you for your kind invitation and for your gracious and warm words of welcome.
I am grateful to have this opportunity to share with you today some reflections on Ireland’s current economic situation. Many of you will know that Ireland’s economy has in recent years enjoyed unprecedented levels of success.
There is an endless array of statistics to demonstrate just how remarkable that transformation has been. Let me mention just a couple. In the five-year period between 1993 and 1997, the Irish economy grew by almost 40% in real terms. This has been achieved against a background where inflation has remained low, averaging 2.75% last year.
More importantly, these successive years of buoyant economic growth have now translated into a significant fall in unemployment, down from over 14% in 1994 to just 7.8% in 1998. Against the historical background of decades of high unemployment, and consequently high levels of emigration, these figures are the ones in which we take most pride. They are an indication that today, finally, the tragic waste of human talent caused by high unemployment in the past, is now being overcome.
Indeed instead of the massive waves of emigration in the past, a feature of the Nineties has been the return to Ireland of skilled expatriates eager to participate in our dynamic economy. They bring with them invaluable experience and skills with which they will be able to create new opportunities and new employment.
The factors behind that economic success are many and varied, but I would like to single just a few of these.
The first is the investment made by successive Governments in education and training. We now have one of the one of the youngest and best-educated work forces in Europe, and one of the highest proportion of graduates with scientific skills of any OECD country. Sixty percent of students major in engineering, science or business subjects.
This has been an essential factor both in attracting foreign investment and in building up a thriving indigenous business sector. We have concentrated in high-tech, high value areas such as the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, computer software and international financial services. Indeed, Ireland is now the world’s second largest exporter of microchip technology. It demonstrates that an investment in education is not only praiseworthy but essential if an economy is to thrive in today’s global marketplace.
A second key strength lies in the achievement of social partnership and consensus by successive Governments over the past decade and more. This has moderated public spending and wage demands, while ensuring that important employment protections and rights have been put in place. By working together on a partnership basis, Government, employers and trade unions have each been able to meet their requirements through compromise, instead of the conflict of the past.
A further important factor in our success has been that successive Governments have put in place the physical and financial infrastructure required to support business and entrepreneurship. Heavy investment in the modernisation of our telecommunications infrastructure; the introduction of low tax rates on the profits of overseas companies operating in and exporting from Ireland are two fundamental strengths of our economy. These policies, together with the support provided for job creation, employee training, and research and development, have helped us attract more than 1,100 overseas companies to Ireland.
The most important factor of all, and often one that is forgotten, lies in the Irish people’s capacity for hard work; their imagination and creativity; their willingness to take the opportunities that are now being created and that they are helping to create.
These opportunities have been greatly enhanced by developments in the European economy, particularly the creation of the Single European Market and the new single currency. Our country is seen as a bridgehead to the EU for many companies from Anglophone countries such as the United Sates, Canada and Australia, but also from other countries outside the EU such as Japan and South Korea. Our connections with European businesses, our knowledge of the European business environment, the language skills of our workforce; these are seen as positive advantages for companies locating in Ireland.
The lessons we have learned are ones which I believe have a value and resonance here in Mexico. Each of us comes from a country which had a poor, agricultural based economy, drained by generations of emigration. We have shown that a transformation is possible, indeed is limited only by the imagination of our peoples.
Our success rests on building up warm friendships and excellent trading relations with our overseas partners. The credit for achieving this in our two way trade with Mexico, is in no small part due to our Honorary Consul. I would like to thank you warmly once again for the immense success of your work here in Mexico and wish you many more successes in the years ahead.