Professor Alan Barrett:

The great problem for Ireland is how we get the domestic economy going but history will show that in the absence of a buoyant international economy it is next to impossible to do this. We have achieved a certain amount in the context of the international environment but, in regard to the points made earlier about being more proactive in developing supportive policies at European level, these will be critical to Ireland. Unfortunately, however, there is a sense that we have to wait.

We know economies fluctuate and that a European take off will happen eventually. We want to be in a position to take advantage of it, however. We spoke earlier about the need for infrastructure to be in place and to ensure it does not dwindle. Two issues arise on the SME front. The first is credit availability. One of the themes which emerged at a conference I attended on this topic which was organised by the ESRI last Friday was that we have to ensure our SME leaders are sufficiently equipped to engage with the banking system. A number of people argue that one of the effects of the Celtic tiger years was that it was so easy to get credit one did not really need the skills to make a convincing case. The bank was going to offer money no matter how bad the business case might have been. A generation of Irish entrepreneurs operated in that sort of system and they may not have the sort of training now required.