Madam, – I refer to Conor Brady’s article (Opinion, November 16th). He is right in saying that the positive messages regarding Ireland have to be communicated, but his conclusion is wrong. The Irish Government doesn’t need to be trained to deal with the media. The media itself simply doesn’t want to hear the positive stories. They want to see their own cliches fulfilled and that’s it. Over the last few months, the German-Irish Chamber of Industry and Commerce (situated in Dublin) visited seven main cities in Germany together with the Irish Ambassador in Germany, IDA officials, some Irish business people and one of your colleagues from the media to present a realistic view about Ireland, armed with all the information about what differentiates Ireland starkly from Greece or Portugal.
Altogether more than 350 decision-makers in Germany were briefed on Ireland. All of them – literally – were impressed by how strong the Irish economy is. The simple fact that the GDP per capita is much higher in Ireland than it is in Germany, even during this crisis, created surprise.
Thanks to the excellent co-operation with all partners we gave an objective view on Ireland Inc during our roadshow. The press (German and Irish) participated but the result was almost nothing! The media simply didn’t want to use the positive information.
On Tuesday I gave an interview on a radio station in Berlin for 15 minutes and mentioned many positive aspects of Ireland Inc, in particular the forecast for the coming few years. The radio station cut the piece to two minutes and left in only how difficult it is for Ireland to get out of its problems.
The media (and you have to start with the Irish first) has to change its traditional attitude of “bad news is good news”. The stakes are just too high for Ireland. – Yours, etc,