GLOBAL IRISH ECONOMIC FORUM:IRELAND IS facing "three immense and immediate challenges", Taoiseach Brian Cowen told participants in the Global Economic Forum at Farmleigh.
At the opening of the conference yesterday, Mr Cowen said “defining choices” would soon be made on the Lisbon Treaty referendum, the National Assets Management Agency (Nama) and the budget.
These were “three immense and immediate challenges that we must positively resolve”, he said.
The Taoiseach said decisions made by leading multinationals to invest in Ireland were made on the basis of a thorough business case analysis. He said attracting inward investment and related employment would be much more difficult if the Irish people failed to endorse the treaty.
He said Ireland had been profoundly affected by the global financial crisis. “Some of our problems are also domestic in origin, such as an overheated property market and banking crisis and serious deterioration in public finances,” he said. Mr Cowen said the 2010 budget would contain “further difficult decisions”.
The forum’s agenda was designed to seek advice on developments and initiatives abroad which could ensure Ireland was prepared for a global upturn, he continued. “We must act with hope rather than despair, courage rather than fear, and we must look ahead rather than behind.”
Mr Cowen said the “Irish brand” had distinct and intrinsic value. “We must connect with that brand now, renovate it, use it, in order to give us a competitive advantage in a globalised world.
“The Ireland we envisage for the future is a smart, high-value, export-led economy. It will have some of the world’s leading research-intensive multinationals, a number of which will be Irish-owned,” he said.
He said it would have thousands of innovative small and medium enterprises and smart, efficient and citizen-oriented public services. “It should be a reasonable aspiration of all children born in this country that they might, one day, have the opportunity to start their own business. That is what I am trying to achieve.”
Mr Cowen said the event was the start of an important new phase in the State’s relationship with Irish people in leadership positions across the world.