A decade or so ago, New Zealand had a run-down rail system and an inadequate taxi service, just as the Republic of Ireland has today. But in recent years its government privatised the railways and deregulated the taxis, with some pretty dramatic results. This intrigued the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, a champion of privatisation, and her officials when they visited Wellington and Auckland last week.
One of their aims was to compare the Irish and New Zealand experience in modernising dysfunctional economies. Ireland has opted for fast growth but New Zealand has gone down the privatisation road first, in a slash-and-burn fashion. The public mood turned against a state railway system which was used to soak up unemployment.
Laid-off workers were often taken on at repair yards with nothing to do. Newspapers delighted in stories of work crews fixing signals on lines that had been permanently closed.
Since the state sold its rolling stock and railway lines to the Wisconsin Central Rail Co of the US, the number of railway workers in New Zealand has fallen from 22,000 to 5,000 and much work is sub-contracted.
After hearing from local officials about the wonderful benefits of privatisation of the railways, I went for a short journey by train to see for myself.
I took the Wellington to Johnsonville branch line, an 11km ride to a well-established suburb in the surrounding hills.
The little English Electric train passes through seven tunnels and across a number of pretty valleys where thick blackberry bushes and yellow gorse line the tracks. It was a hot, late-summer afternoon.
The ticket inspector, in shorts and with a moustache like an RAF pilot, had a joke for everyone.
I took a seat beside a barefoot teenager and studied the advice left by a previous rider on the imitation leather of the seat in front, which consisted of the suggestion in marker pen, "F... off".
After this inauspicious welcome, the ancient train - the carriages date back to the 1930s - began making its way noisily out of the station. Then it stopped.
Several minutes passed before the conductor, not smiling now, came hurrying through the carriages to tell us: "We're all going back to the platform. Something has happened to this one." The train had broken down.
Back we went and were led to another set of carriages where we sat for five minutes before being told to board a third train, which eventually got us to Johnsonville.
In fairness to Tranz Rail, which is responsible for the country's railways, other commuter trains, mostly using Hungarian-built carriages, have established a reasonably good reputation for comfort and reliability, people told me.
The scenic trains which take tourists through the Alps on South Island (which, alas, I did not have time to test personally) are also highly rated.
The railways compete with roads which are managed by dozens of local authorities and have not yet been privatised, though in a country which has sold off its electricity, its national airline and its health service to foreign interests, no one would be surprised if this should happen, too.
The railways in New Zealand are at a disadvantage in competition with road hauliers as they are narrow-gauge, which means that speed is restricted. The short journey to Johnsonville the other day (once we got going, that is) took over 20 minutes on the one-metre-gauge line, which dates back to 1885.
So a return trip by taxi to Wellington seemed a good idea. This posed no problem. Taxis have become plentiful in urban New Zealand since the business was deregulated and the practice of issuing a limited number of expensive plates to taxi-drivers - as is the case in Dublin - was eliminated.
In the 1980s it was not unknown to wait an hour for a taxi on a busy evening in the centre of Wellington or Auckland. Now, because of competition, several new taxi firms and individual cab-owners ply for hire. Each still pays a licence fee but it has been reduced to about £2,000, an eighth of the former charge for a plate.
They have to pass area-knowledge tests and keep their cars to a high standard, but anyone can now get into the business. There was a "huge objection" from the established taxi firms but they were overridden, said a government adviser, who added: "We operated on the TINA principle, There Is No Alternative."
The customers certainly seem to get the benefit. Some companies even offer "smoke-free" taxis to passengers who object to tobacco smells. Drivers generally wear shirt, tie and epaulettes and keep their cars spotlessly clean. In Auckland the number of taxis - mostly white Ford Fairlanes - rose from 900 to 3,000 in a decade and, because of lower fares, more people are using them.
Not all firms, of course, maintain the required standards. "I have seen some drivers wearing scruffy, unpressed trousers, jogging shoes, open-neck shirts and grubby old jackets," said Mr Gavin Dobie, secretary of the Taxi Federation, with deep disapproval.
The New Zealand model may one day be adapted in Dublin; in the meantime frustrated would-be passengers are unlikely to object to a tieless driver or demand a smoke-free cab when looking for a ride home from O'Connell Street on a wet Saturday night. They will be only too happy to find a taxi at all.