Mary White (Fianna Fail)

I do not. Do not mind Senator Alex White. He is jealous. I would like to see more business people in politics, because in his speech the Minster of State showed us that he understands how business and companies work and develop. If everybody was working in the non-trading sector, there would be poor days ahead for us.

Ireland's economic transformation in the past decade has been remarkable. Our nation is envied and studied by many other developed and developing countries around the world. In January 1988, The Economist published a picture of a woman and a child begging on the street in Dublin, with a headline "The poorest of the rich". Ireland was presented like this all over the world. It was a bad image. Much has changed since then. At that time, we were the basket case of Europe and all the young people in the audience know that a transformation has occurred in our country. Many reasons abound on how we have become so successful. Other countries in eastern Europe, South America and even individual states of the US have visited to see what has been going on. Hillary Clinton came here to see how she could spread regional development through the state of New York.

I am going to look at the individual entrepreneurs and how the Government was entrepreneurial in its decisions on developing businesses. Far-sighted policy decisions taken by the Government over a number of years created the conditions in which economic activity could thrive. When global economic conditions were ripe, we were able to take full advantage. Economic and enterprise policy is constantly evolving and like a good business, the Government must constantly evolve its policies. It will not continue to grow business unless it changes because circumstances are changing.

At present there are difficult trading conditions around the world for companies. I was in the US a month ago, where my nephew works with Merrill Lynch. He said that there is fear throughout the company about the state of the stock market there. Competition for overseas markets is intense and there is also intense competition for foreign direct investment into Ireland. The Government's current policy is driven in part by a long-term view, which is a vision of what home-grown internationally focused companies can achieve if constraints and barriers to growth are removed and appropriate supports are provided. These are the wealth-generating companies and they are located throughout the State. Their success will have profound implications for the local and regional economies in which they are based.

In 1987, Connie Doody and myself started Lir Chocolates. This was at a time when unemployment was at 18%. I started the business not to make money, but to lower the unemployment levels here. We brought jobs to East Wall and the local parish priest came to us for our first Christmas and thanked us for providing extra temporary employment at that period. He said that there would be food and presents on the table in many houses in East Wall because of the jobs we provided. I speak from personal experience when I say that creating and providing jobs can help local economies.

Irish owned internationally trading services companies spend around €17 billion in the Irish economy on wages, raw materials and service. This spend multiplies throughout the economy. It is seldom recognised that the contribution is similar to that of the foreign owned enterprises here. People do not realise the contribution that is made and its value to the economy. To build and maintain strong growth in an ever more competitive and interconnected world requires creativity and imagination. In order to sustain an economy, we need creative ideas, new and better ways of working, and innovative products and services. These will be the main drivers of future success. Even as a small company, we knew that survival was about innovation and creativity. We spent five years in developing our Bailey's chocolates, with three people devoted to the task. It was a small company at the time, but we are not so small now as we have 140 people employed. The key was to make Bailey's chocolate that would last six months, but at the start we were only able to make a kind that would last two weeks. It took us five years to do it.