An Irishman's Diary

BOOMBURG News Agency, Dublin. Wednesday.– The leading graduate manufacturer, Ireland Inc, yielded to mounting criticism from US customers today by admitting potential quality control and safety issues involving thousands of its products. The company's share price fell sharply on the news.

But, despite calls for such a move, Ireland Inc has so far stopped short of ordering a global recall.

It is understood the problem involves both second- and third-level graduates, produced on a range of assembly lines between 1992 and 2004. All makes are potentially affected. But among those causing particular concern is the best-selling Maynooth first-class honours model, one of Ireland Inc’s recent success stories: production of which increased by 700 per cent during the boom years.

The sporty, fast-talking UCC model, premium versions of which rose by 174 per cent during the same period, is also being investigated.

But safety fears are not confined to the company’s luxury products. The hybrid Institute-of-Technology diploma holder, a mainstay of the family and budget sectors of the market, is thought to be at risk too. And even the humble Leaving Cert graduate, still popular as an urban runabout, may now be suspect.

Although no lives are known to have been lost as a result of faulty certification, employers of Irish graduates have reported a wide range of workplace accidents in which they appear implicated. Safety issues identified include “clumsy handling”, “sudden loss of control”, “poor decision-making in an emergency”, “premature inflation of airbags”, and “never knowing when to stop”.

One employer cited the case of a recent recruit – supposedly a high-flying computer programmer – who, when asked, could not “find his arse with a road-map”. The young man resorted to Google Earth instead, and the search ultimately proved successful. But in the meantime, the company had lost both time and money.

Such isolated incidents aside, the possibility that faulty Irish graduates were responsible for recent larger-scale disasters, hitherto attributed to other causes, is also now being considered.

Traditionally one of the world’s leading exporters of well-educated young people, Ireland Inc produced unprecedented numbers of graduates for domestic use during the Celtic Tiger era. This has led some observers to suggest a link with the country’s recent construction crash and the resultant mass pile-up: the causes of which are still being investigated.

Criticism from employers had already forced management at Ireland Inc onto the defensive. The head of the company’s graduate manufacturing division, Mr Batt O’Keeffe, bowed to pressure from US multinationals last year by ordering an inquiry into the safety of all degrees.

And although experts say that bowing has great cultural significance in Ireland as an expression of humility, it is thought Mr O’Keeffe may yet have to go further. Analysts predict that there may be some scraping as well, before long. Tugging of the forelock is expected too. If none of that works, Mr O’Keeffe may be offered his sword and invited to do the decent thing.

The chief executive of Ireland Inc, Mr Brian Cowen, attempted to limit the damage yesterday, pointing out that since the problem related only to the period up to 2004, it did not affect the country’s graduates “going forward”.

Critics immediately leapt on this metaphorically unfortunate choice of words, saying that, based on the evidence, Irish graduates could not be trusted either going forward or in reverse, and that unpredictable sideways movements could not be ruled out either. “My fear is that if and when the economy does begin to turn a corner,” one observer commented, “the people driving it will go straight on and hit a tree”.

Some experts believe that only a complete recall of the affected models will restore market confidence, although it is uncertain how exactly the graduates’ educational deficit could be redressed. Once possibility is that they might be retrofitted with the required skills through compulsory attendance at evening classes. Various software-upload options may also be considered.

One Irish Government politician, Mary Coughlan, admitted her concern about falling standards in the country’s schools and universities. “You don’t have to understand Einstein’s Theory of Evolution to see that this is a problem,” she said.

But some graduate producers defended themselves against the criticism. The Irish Secondary Teachers Organisation (ISTO) pointed out that, according to its analysis, only 35 per cent of maths and science graduates were potentially affected by grade inflation: “That still leaves a whopping 78 per cent in the clear.” Meanwhile, the Association of English Teachers in Ireland (AETI) denied there had been a collapse in literacy standards. The curriculum had evolved to meet modern needs, a spokesman said in a statement. But the fundamentals were as sound now as they were when Ireland was still, as the statement put it, “the land of saint’s and skoller’s”.