"Building Ireland's Smart Economy" ... will it work?

Gandalf23

So our mighty government announced its latest strategy to save us all from going down the toilet.

Its called 'Building Ireland's Smart Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal' in case you missed it.

My opinion is that its just a load of stuff thats already been announced (most of the measures announced are already up and running), tinged with a token sprig of green.

What say ye all?

MagicMarker

What is with that picture of Brian Cowen?

He looks like a white Nutty Professor.

javaboy

Is it Brian Cowen day or what?

AlmightyCushion

They can call it smart but it's still going to be run by a bunch of idiots which will be it's downfall.

niceirishfella

It can be done, but not by this Government as they are incompetent.

ejmaztec

javaboy wrote: »

Is it Brian Cowen day or what?

Shared with Pol Pot.

Vadrefjorde

Doomed...... I can't believe i waited all day to hear the amazing solution and this is it
I even had myself convinced that ditching the euro might be on the cards but no....

the_syco

What else should they do? Wait till they get voted out? May as well try to generate a light at the end of the tunnel.

brianthebard

The amount of money it will take to build a world beating education system is massive, the talent, technology, will power and cash just isn't there, and the pay off is long term, something FF are not known for getting right (as far as I'm concerned). It'll get watered down pretty quickly and one of two schools will get an actual building instead of the sh1tty prefabs they have to use atm, that'll be it.

peasant

It's a great programme (really !) and it would actually work ....















...if there wasn't a worldwide recession/depression going on.

The programme has nothing to do with the current situation, but otherwise ...yeah, nice programme

Tipsy Mac

We can't even sort out Broadband speeds in our major cities, we have no hope at all, it's such a pity with all the talent people living in the country that we have such idiots running things.

deleriumtremens

My opinion is the following although I will not explain why:

Yes and no

Has Ireland got that much talent though?
Don't a majority of Irish students go to college just for the beer and cram for exams in the hope of scrapping by?

How many people came into work on Mondays/Fridays dying with a head from the night before

I don't think Ireland has the culture to become a 'smart economy'

Despite that I accept that there are Irish people out there who are incredibily good at what they do.

Except those in the Dail of course

Knowledge Economy -> Smart Economy -> ... -> Profit.

Krieg

The very fact that they used the word "Smart" in the title, means its going to fail. :pac:

Vadrefjorde

This plan is destined to be filed right alongside "the decentralisation plan".
The fact that our currencies are now linked yet 90% of our trade is with the uk means that no matter what nice plans are drawn up it will fail as we are in for the same nightmare that Argentina had years ago when they attempted to link their currency to the us dollar :(

Gekko

Having read through the plan, it seemed to consist of 100-odd pages where everything was repeated about 5 times.

With regard to the '€500m innovation fund'...well we're throwing something like €8.5 billion at Science Foundation Ireland...and I'm not sure if we've got much of a return from that yet.

All the following sectors of the economy are in big trouble: financial services, professional services, banking, retailing, motor trade, personal services, manufacturing, tourism, small businesses and construction.

If our most talented people can't afford to stay here as the economy declines, they'll emigrate.

The sterling situation is going to devastate the economy. Latest forecast is for 120,000 job losses next year. I'd guess that's now a conservative estimate unless the pound strengthens.

It's difficult to see how long this economic situation can continue in the face of massively falling tax takes versus public sector and capital expenditure commitments and rising social welfare costs.

Worst case scenario is we go bankrupt like Iceland did recently or we go cap in hand, on our knees to Europe and ask to be bailed out.

Or maybe we could whore ourselves to a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund.

Darragh29

The "plan" is big on buzzwords and soundbytes and short on stragety and detail, which means it isn't a plan at all but a discussion document. A real plan sets out position A, (where you are now) and position B (where you want to get to), and states in the clearest possible terms, how to get from A to B. Don't see any of that here...

Darragh29

Gekko wrote: »

The sterling situation is going to devastate the economy. Latest forecast is for 120,000 job losses next year. I'd guess that's now a conservative estimate unless the pound strengthens.

When things were at their absolute worst in the 1980's, job losses in Ireland peaked at 24,000 job losses for one year, I think it was 1984.

We aren't even one business quarter into this recession and we are looking at 120,000 job losses for next year, more than five times the rate of the very worst year of unemployment in the 80's...

Lets remember now that only 35% of jobs in the current economy are inside the tax net, the remainder are typically low paid jobs outside the tax net that bring no tax liability and the government get no PAYE income from these workers. They can still claim social welfare however if they are unemployed because they've been paying PRSI...

Dob74

Darragh29 wrote: »

When things were at their absolute worst in the 1980's, job losses in Ireland peaked at 24,000 job losses for one year, I think it was 1984.

We aren't even one business quarter into this recession and we are looking at 120,000 job losses for next year, more than five times the rate of the very worst year of unemployment in the 80's...

Lets remember now that only 35% of jobs in the current economy are inside the tax net, the remainder are typically low paid jobs outside the tax net that bring no tax liability and the government get no PAYE income from these workers. They can still claim social welfare however if they are unemployed because they've been paying PRSI...

It doesn't look good. I know alot of engineers who can't get work in there field. It's a joke the so called knowledge economy. We do not have one major irish i.t. company. There are plenty of small companies doing good work but we are to relient on multi-nationals. We need a nokia or siemens of our own.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Darragh29 wrote: »

When things were at their absolute worst in the 1980's, job losses in Ireland peaked at 24,000 job losses for one year, I think it was 1984.

We aren't even one business quarter into this recession and we are looking at 120,000 job losses for next year, more than five times the rate of the very worst year of unemployment in the 80's...

Lets remember now that only 35% of jobs in the current economy are inside the tax net, the remainder are typically low paid jobs outside the tax net that bring no tax liability and the government get no PAYE income from these workers. They can still claim social welfare however if they are unemployed because they've been paying PRSI...

Trying to find words for this, but the unemployment rate in the early 80's was a lot higher than it is now. 24,000 job losses may not be a lot compared to 120,000, but take this into consideration. Approximately 8% of the workforce is unemployed now. In 1984 17% of males were unemployed and 12% of females were unemployed. We are still nowhere near that figure yet. So about 11% in 2009 compared to 14.5% in 1984.

Source

Please correct me if I am wrong.

shut up!

Few of these people had E500,000 mortgages and gaping debts, though.

Darragh29

Dalton Curved Paste wrote: »

Trying to find words for this, but the unemployment rate in the early 80's was a lot higher than it is now. 24,000 job losses may not be a lot compared to 120,000, but take this into consideration. Approximately 8% of the workforce is unemployed now. In 1984 17% of males were unemployed and 12% of females were unemployed. We are still nowhere near that figure yet. So about 11% in 2009 compared to 14.5% in 1984.

Source

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Do you think that in the 80's, the country just woke up to find 17% of males unemployed?!??! No, it crept up from somewhere, just like it is now, the only thing this time around is that it isn't creaping up, the rate of increase is literally unbelievable, it's soaring!!!

This time last year, we had an employment rate of below 4%, this has doubled within a 12 month period to almost 10%. Every figure this government has given us since it became a government, has been hugely wide off the mark.

Only 2 months ago they were talking about "technically" breaching the 3% Stability & Growth Pact deficit limit by a percent or two, now they are borrowing over three times that limit for next year!!! What I do now is just increase whatever figure they give us for anything and double it, and guess what, before you know it, it turns out to be an accurate enough figure!

You wait and see, we'll be extremely lucky if we don't see a national unemployment rate in this country of 15% next year. This isn't very far away from your armageddon figure of 17%!!!

noel farrell

the short answer is no its only a re hash of old ideas that dident work we are in for a rough ride for at best five years or more :rolleyes:

Darragh29

Have a read of this...

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1015583.shtml

We wonder why the country hasn't a pot to p*ss into and we currently have at least one TD who is also drawing a teachers salary according to this report...

:mad::mad::mad:

Highsider

The simple fact is we are doomed under this goverment and you know what we as a people deserve it.

ART6

Darragh29 wrote: »

The "plan" is big on buzzwords and soundbytes and short on stragety and detail, which means it isn't a plan at all but a discussion document. A real plan sets out position A, (where you are now) and position B (where you want to get to), and states in the clearest possible terms, how to get from A to B. Don't see any of that here...

Entirely correct, but the how to get there element is a problem when you have no idea how to. So you call it an "aspiration" rather than a "strategy". That means that you can then require "reports" and "reviews" from consultants who don't have any idea either. With a bit of luck and a following wind you can keep the pot gently simmering until the end of your term of office, at which point you can then start blaming the new government for not developing your idea. At that point it will have decome retrospectively retitled as a "strategy". Isn't politics wonderful??:D

Ulysses Gaze

The use of the word "New" in the poll question is an oxymoron. there is nothing new in this plan by FF (quelle surprise).

And this initiative would take possibly 8-10 years to bear any fruit. Plus it won't solve our unemployment problems. We have thousands of semi-skilled people in the country at the moment. How do we begin to train them as Knowledge Workers?

No ubiquitous broadband...not even free WiFi in cities. We're not even producing enough tech grads as it is.

....and some of the first things to get cut in a company are technology investments when the going gets tough.

How are FF gonna address that?

I know...let's build more houses!!!

dan719

Vadrefjorde wrote: »

The fact that our currencies are now linked yet 90% of our trade is with the uk means that no matter what nice plans are drawn up it will fail as we are in for the same nightmare that Argentina had years ago when they attempted to link their currency to the us dollar :(

Nowhere near 90% of our trade takes place with the UK. you pulled that out of your ass, it's around 40%.

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/pr_extrade.htm

Not only that Ireland has never had a free floating exchange rate, before the Euro we were tied to sterling.

Right now being a member of the secondary global reserve currency is a good thing. Unless of course you would like to be Iceland?

Vadrefjorde

I didn't just pul a figure out of thin air, your figure of 40% (42% actually) only covers food and beverage exports.
The irish punt broke it's link with sterling in 1979 so between then and us joining the euro leaves your argument unproven.
There have been no end of discussions about people playing the "look at iceland" card where they have been discredited for the scaremongering that they really are, so i won't bother.
The very real point is that before we were tied into the euro, we were able to devalue the punt in tandem with the devaluation of sterling, primarily as the island of ireland was and still is very much dependant on trade with the UK.
Time will show the failings of the ECB and the euro, which you have so much faith in. Already we have Latvia having to take a €7.5 bliion loan from the IMF and the EU and nordic states, most of which wil be used to pay off short term debt which it amassed trying to keep within the 3% peg with the euro exchange rate, more baltic european states wil follow...
There is a very clear and cut argument for and against the euro, i have pointed out already what actions we were able to take on previous occasions, which of course we cannot now, being tied i to the euro. My opinion is that our currency situation will exacerbate this recession, prolong it in this country and will, if anything, worsen the economic situation.
Then again it's only an opinion.

galwayrush

The Goverment have probably squandered another few hundred million coming up with that slogan.:mad: