Robert Shortt blogs about the second Global Irish Economic Forum being held in Dublin Castle on Friday and Saturday.
Ireland needs as much help as it can get to emerge from this economic crisis. This week help will be coming in the form of 300 assorted industrial leaders, academics, lobbyists, artists and financiers from all over the world.
They will be participating in the second Global Irish Economic Forum taking place in Dublin Castle. Former US President Bill Clinton will address the Forum on Saturday.
The Forum is an attempt to harness the goodwill, ideas and connections of people from all over the world who have either direct connections to Ireland, or have been co-opted after the style of the Jack Charlton era of Irish soccer (according to the official website globalirishforum.ie) to “…contribute to our economic recovery.”
The first Forum was held in Farmleigh House in 2009. A lot has happened since then. Ireland entered an EU-IMF rescue programme. Unemployment has remained stubbornly high. And recently, some growth has returned to the economy. It’s unlikely any idea presented at the Forum in 2009 could have diverted the economy from its grim trajectory over the past two years. And, in fairness, that doesn’t seem to be its purpose. There is a purpose to high-level talking shops if ideas can be generated that can genuinely benefit the country. So how has the Forum done to date?
The Government last issued an update progress report on the initiatives and objectives agreed at Farmleigh in April. (You can check it out for yourself here). The Global Irish Network has been established, which gives a formal organisational structure to people around the world to become involved in promoting Ireland. The Government, past and present, has invested just over $500,000 to fund the Irish Technology Leadership Group in Silicon Valley. €250m has been pledged under the Innovation Fund to match venture capital investment in innovative companies. And €5m has been invested in a ‘revolutionary’ technology to deliver high-speed broadband around the country.
There may be arguments for and against the public funding of such projects, but the Forum cannot be accused of not producing concrete initiatives.
Some of the objectives, however, could have benefited from a purgative dose of plain English. For example, Medium Term Objective 18: Establish culture of consistency in approach to capital spending and develop greater long-term focus on infrastructure projects.
The official reply?
“…There is already a robust framework to allow for a consistent approach to be taken to the planning, appraisal and management of investment in infrastructure…”
The above example suggests either an objective, which had already been met, was included, in which case it was a waste of time, or the participants identified a problem with our capital spending that was diplomatically diluted to a meaningless phrase which was easily swatted aside to allow business to carry on as usual.
The biggest ‘story’ to emerge from Farmleigh was former Intel chairman Craig Barrett’s trenchant criticism of the Irish education system. His comments were made behind closed doors. If our global network is to truly benefit and reinvigorate the country in a time of need, we need to hear clearly what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong.
Robert Shortt
