Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

There are people with the expertise to do as I propose and who would be willing to engage in and support the work. This relates to the point I made on the document previously. Where are the choices that are being made therein? Where are we outlining what we will not do just as we are saying what we will do? Is the driver of the lack of choices being made the fact that the group that developed the strategy, all of which I have read, includes the people who are charged with implementing it as opposed to those who actually use and depend on policies?

My final point before making observations on how the strategy could be improved concerns our focus, particularly on the smart economy, most of the principles of which I endorse. I encountered some very interesting comments by an economist on the degree of smartness that is already latent in our economy. He made the point that of all the multinationals in our economy, 70% are already at the high-value end of the chain. Out of all the foreign investment that we have recently attracted into our economy, 50% already has a research component. While the smart end of our economy will be successful in generating wealth, will it be successful in delivering additional jobs? I would welcome the inclusion of this point in the document. Integrated into the umbrella of the smart economy were factors such as tourism and international education etc. We need to broaden our minds as we work our way through the quagmire we are in to acknowledge that the smart economy and all its components will be very successful in generating revenue, including tax revenue, and encouraging spending at home, but that other industries, such as tourism, may well be the ones that will supply more jobs. A positive feature of this strategy is that it places industries such as the tourism industry more centrally than documents such as this have done in the past.

With regard to how I would improve the strategy, there are three areas that have not been focused on thus far. The first concerns connectivity and integration with the global economy. Many of my colleagues have made the point that access to Ireland is gradually reducing. If our job is to determine how we will integrate and trade abroad successfully, the reduction of one's ability to get into our country represents a crisis. I came across two brilliant examples of this recently. They were brilliant because they were so worrying. The first concerns the source of venture capital that will fund some of the smart economy initiatives we are talking about. We do not have a large venture capital industry in Ireland. That is to be expected given our size. A large proportion of additional venture capital will come from the United States. We envisage the Silicon Valley area as a source. I was informed recently by somebody working in this area that one cannot get a direct flight any more from Silicon Valley to Ireland. This may sound like a small point but it is of great importance. If one is trying to make someone choose between investing in a location he can easily get to and one he cannot, it makes a great difference.