Next week's report of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) should recommend spending on education to increase the supply of dentists, pharmacists, architects and other professionals, the chairman of the Competition Authority, Dr John Fingleton, said yesterday
Addressing the annual conference of the Institution of Engineers in Galway, Dr Fingleton said poorly targeted investment in education and skills had resulted in a shortage of professionals, a factor which caused prices for professional services to rise and held back economic expansion.
He said a competitiveness issue had arisen because "some of the best and brightest who might be potential Nobel Prize winners" were entering small professional monopolies, such as pharmacy.
"The brightest may become a chemist, but we have to ask ourselves if joining a restricted monopoly is the best use of talent the State can get, particularly if we want to develop a knowledge-based economy."
Dr Fingleton told the engineers they were a good model of competitiveness in that there were no barriers to entry to the profession, and their services were widely available and were exported well around the world.
Educational resources should be targeted to increase the supply of professionals, and restrictions should be examined carefully, both to ensure there was competition in prices for services and that the State got the best advantage for the knowledge economy, he said.
Stressing that he did not speak for the NCC, he nevertheless predicted that its report, due next week, would "have something to say about targeting educational resources".
An example of an issue he felt the report might address was the targeting of educational resources at an unemployed sector of 15 per cent of the population, when 4 per cent was now more realistic.
"This must be seen in the light of pre-primary school needs. I am sure the National Competitiveness Council will have something to say about that," Dr Fingleton said.
Last year's NCC report found that the Republic had had only "mixed" success in delivering education and skills as well as entrepreneurship and enterprise development. It also said that, despite investment, broadband communications and transport infrastructure were very weak.
However, Dr Fingleton cautioned against "crippling" levels of investment in an attempt to deliver the finest standard of infrastructure.
"We need to think about how far the investment should go. We need to realise that we should aim for good-quality basic infrastructure, not necessarily the best in the world," he said.
The secretary general of the Department of Transport, Ms Julie O'Neill, told the conference that the major challenge for the Department in the coming years would be to achieve value for money in "the, by any standards huge, investment programmes".
She said the transport budget, which is the largest element of Exchequer/EU infrastructure investment, had seen €4 billion spent on roads since 2000.