THIS MONTH’S edition features some ominous predictions from global financier George Soros about the threat for a double-dip recession. Meanwhile in a recent visit to Ireland, Intel’s former chairman Craig Barrett has warned that Ireland could well become an economic backwater if we don’t renew our approach and offering to the business world.

While the priority remains stabilising the economy, the time has come to look ahead to the financial and economic landscape of the coming years. The question is: can we really rebuild on the foundations of the previous 10 years, albeit with the lessons of the harrowing events of 2009 ringing in our ears?

Or is it time for a completely new blueprint? To paraphrase Soros, slowly returning to business as usual is a grave misinterpretation of the current situation. Just as he calls for a new Bretton Woods accord for global finance, perhaps now is the time for a monumental root and branch reform of our national economic and business structures. This has been touched upon in various initiatives such as the drive towards the so-called Smart economy and the work of the Innovation Taskforce.

But these have seemed to be at the periphery of normal business activity. It may now be time to bring the disparate programmes together as a national priority.

Barrett spelled it out plainly during his visit: to succeed we need smart people (good education), smart ideas (investment in research) and a way to let smart people get together with smart ideas to do something (the environment). In none of these areas can we truly claim to excel on a European or worldwide stage.

In the third requirement – environment – we once proved attractive because of our low tax policy, but that’s no longer unique in Europe, never mind the world. And for all the talk of supporting enterprise and innovation, we now face a situation where our welfare system makes it harder for people to go it alone, or even risk taking a job, for they could well end up worse off. It’s time for a radical change.