Gangsta rapper Dr Dre revamps Clonakilty set-up

It’s a long way from the Famine lament: “Clonakilty! God help us.”

A unit of another Clon firm of chartered accountants became a German commercial property investment firm during the bubble and in 2007 purchased a major Berlin shopping centre for over €100m.

Some of the investors were likely in receipt of mainly German-funded CAP welfare!

It’s usually the big Dublin law firms that are involved in marketing tax haven opportunities and they are also likely to be advisers to the Government.

Conflict of interest remains a curious concept in Ireland.

So Ireland isn’t a tax haven!

Besides, non-resident tax vehicles, Ireland is marketed as a location for headquarters of companies because of what are essentially tax haven advantages.

These companies are not required to have normal business operations in Ireland e.g. production, sales, marketing etc.
Arthur Cox, Ireland’s biggest corporate law firm, said in a January 2011 tax briefing titled, ‘Uses of Ireland for German Companies’:

“There are numerous advantages for multi-national companies with large Intellectual Property (“IP”) portfolios who locate and manage these portfolios in Ireland. The effective corporation tax rate can be reduced to as low as 2.5% for Irish companies whose trade involves the exploitation of intellectual property. The Irish IP regime is broad and applies to all types of IP. A generous scheme of capital allowances as well as a tax credit for money invested in research and development in Ireland offer significant incentives to companies who locate their activities in Ireland.

A well-known global company recently moved the ownership and exploitation of an IP portfolio worth approximately $7bn to Ireland.”

It is believed that the global company referred to is Accenture, the US management consultancy, which moved its headquarters from Bermuda to Ireland in 2009.

Also in 2009, Cooper Industries with a payroll of 25,000 moved its headquarters from Bermuda to Maynooth, Ireland, to give the location more legitimacy in the eyes of US politicians. In 2012 it was acquired by Eaton, another US electric systems company, with a payroll of 75,000 and the bigger Eaton decided to move the headquarters of the expanded group to Ireland and save an annual $160m on its tax bill.

The different categories of Irish companies, raises the issue of compliance regulation or none.

Apple, Anglo Irish Bank and Irish company law

Come on everyone. Stick to the party line. Repeat after me. “Ireland is not a tax haven” ok. These companies merely set up sham companies in Ireland for tax strategy purposes. Everyone is forgetting the small amount of taxable income they make in Ireland. This is all a product of us tax not our own

But can someone tell me why these companies are choosing Ireland? Rather than other European countries to set up sham companies in. Why would the scheme not work in other eu countries.. Does this not make us a tax haven

Colm McCarthy in the Sindo.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/us-puts-europe-to-shame-in-dealing-with-recession-29313937.html

“These services exports represent in large part the activities of multinational companies in the digital economy booking worldwide sales as exports through Ireland, offset by imports of intellectual property in the form of royalty payments on patents and the like. The national economic statistics are being distorted. To be blunt, some of the apparent buoyancy in the services figures is due to fake exports with little impact on the real economy here. These reported exports reflect the (perfectly legal) manoeuvres undertaken by the multinationals to minimise their tax liabilities in other jurisdictions. Everyone knows this but each data release is greeted with cheer-leading PR announcements, which is just childish.”

Again Shakespeare; “truth will out”.

Got his mind on his money and his money on his mind….

Mad at me caus
I can finally afford to provide my family with groceries
Got a crib with a studio and it’s all full of tracks
To add to the wall full of plaques
Hanging up in the office in back of my house like trophies
But ya’ll think I’m gonna let my dough freeze?
Ho Please

AP News
Anti-austerity protests: Spain, Germany, Portugal (and Ballyhea)

MADRID (AP) — Anti-austerity protesters on Saturday took to the streets of dozens of European cities, including Madrid, Frankfurt and Lisbon, to express their anger at government cuts they say are making the financial crisis worse by stifling growth and increasing unemployment.

[…] Police in Germany’s financial capital said about 7,000 protesters refused to move after officers encircled a group of about 200-300 people because they refused to remove face masks they were wearing.

Organizers of the “Blockupy” protest said up to 20,000 people had demonstrated against the ECB’s role in pushing European countries to cut government spending as part of efforts to reduce public debt.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-06-01/anti-austerity-protests-in-spain-portugal

01 June 2013

Financial Sector: Bigger and More Profitable Than Ever [great geraphic ….

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.ie/2013/06/financial-sector-bigger-and-more.html

h/t nakedcapitalism for both of the above …

Brian, the caricature is now the real … blue pills all round with a tiny few exceptions …

@ Flj

It is, indeed, a very good article. As to what the economy is doing, nobody seems to know. There was a debate on another thread where some contributors had decided to trust the evidence of their own direct observations. Bumping along the bottom seems to be conclusion but doing BETTER than what other economies in Europe are achieving.

The truth will, at least, be a little more identifiable by next year.

http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/EN/Artikel/2013/05/2013-05-29-steuerabkommen-d-usa.html

Ireland was, of course, one of the first countries to sign up to FATCA.

I think CMc may be a little too pessimistic on the euro. While there is not exactly a breakthrough in the key relationship between Germany and France, there is a major improvement.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/merkel-opposes-more-powers-for-eu-commission-1.1414806

The issue of the role of the Commission is rather beside the point. They key is the political willingness of the two major economies to have closer coordination of their economic and social policies which cannot be created simply by changing treaty texts. (As every controversy in Ireland seems to confirm, the belief in legislative paperwork rather than action is unshakable).

@DOCM
I think they want to give Dieselboom the heave ho. I like the following attributed to Chirac..”he missed a good opportunity to shut up”.

Remington you of any Minister here?

The elites love to spin fairytales and the conflation of the FDI sector with the indigenous sector has given great mileage over the years.

The CSO does its job in accordance with international standards but the persistent misrepresentation of the data by ministers and others is against the public interest.

It’s good that Colm calls massive booking of diverted services revenues from other countries that become fake Irish services exports — what they are.

Last March when the CSO announced a rise of 15% in computer services exports (Google’s global web revenues rose 21% in 2012 and almost half are diverted to Ireland) and 13% in business services (mainly Apple), official Ireland including the Central Bank went along with the line that this reflected increased competitiveness and FDI.

IBEC and the Irish Exporters’ Association act as cheerleaders (at least IBEC know the difference between spoof and reality as its head is a former ESRI economist; I’m not sure about the export group – it is planning a trade mission to China in a few weeks and it is quoting a HSBC bank forecast for Irish exports but the data used is dominated by intra-company transfers that involve neither sales or marketing.

The addiction to spin is a cancer and until it is challenged, it will prevent the development of sustainable policies for beyond the crisis fire-fighting.

FDI has peaked while it’s clear that the linkages over the decades have been too weak to help develop a base for the development of a strong indigenous sector.

The bitter truth is that the indigenous export economy has performed poorly since the 1990s despite corporate and employer social security rates being among the lowest in Europe and no requirement to provide employees with an occupational pension; a large number of public supports, and current hourly wage costs at 78% of Denmark’s level.

Bruton and Murphy in the WSJ article recycled a common fairytale for an American audience:

“Foreign direct investment into Ireland is at all-time highs, and U.S. multinationals remain very important to Ireland. However, less well known is that Irish companies employ as many people in the U.S. as U.S. firms do in Ireland—around 100,000 workers.”

Inward FDI peaked a decade ago and full-time jobs in the foreign owned sector are at a 13-year low.

As for the claim on outward investment, on paper it exceeds inward investment and is good material for spinners of fairytales.

The Irish Government cannot even agree on the level of inward FDI. So-called ‘trapped overseas cash’ may well be in the US but its is treated as an inward investment inflow from the rise in reinvested earnings:

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1026038.shtml

Wonder how a collapse in reported services exports would be spinned?

Just passed through Clonakilty. No sign of him.

Ireland the real OG.
Cox,Goodbody,Porn…poor old Arthur ended his days in the,sorry as a missionary…a bit dated but.
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/media-and-marketing/internet-porn-producer-uses-dublin-as-base-1.1316413

DOCM

when you look at the graph in your spiegel link at the left, you see that industrial users in Germany are already massively punished and disadvantaged compared to UK, FR, US.

we had this topic here before as well
http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2013/04/25/trust-in-the-eu-again/#comment-418712

with detailed, quantitative links.

If all those , who qualified in the last 2 years as heavy users, are really qualified, is one thing, which to my gut feeling will be revoked more often than not.

But to viciously put energy intensive industry in Germany at an even more unfair disadvantage, is criminal. And then Almeria and the Greens will pay the price for their falsehood.

on the lighter side: some may enjoy that the USA lead 4-2 to German soccer in the moment : – )

@ DOCM

Ref the Colm McCarthy article. ‘Truth will out’ indeed, but only a bit at a time. Others will have their views on the process, but it seems to me that Michael Hennigan’s view of the FDI sector is coming slowly and painfully to be accepted by the citizenry. This insight will be resisted, to the political death, by the various placemen, spinners and acolytes who live from the froth. While the efforts of those who are trying to bring real economy activities to these shores, or build real economy capacity here on an FDI basis, have my great respect, the reality is that the financial froth is displacing the real economic beer.

Colm has got the first part right. The FDI stats are dross, and they are grossly distorting our national economic stats. The next question is about what else they are distorting, namely national economic development, or what passes for that these days.

Michael has some scathing observations on the Knowledge Economy. He recognises it for the myth that it is, but that will be a very tough call for any tenured Irish academic to make. Music aside, Ireland has poor craft base. We need mid range tech. IMHO, not hi tech employment, and we need to trade it internally for a few affordable pints, among other things. The Dork may have emigrated to Virginia but good ideas never die.

We can agree about the deficiencies in the European response to the crisis. As you have so often pointed out, governments in this region can only do things by agreement. That’s the game we play. There are no short cuts to cohesion, and too many bitter wars were fought to ensure that is so. The US has a federal government, and a hegemonic president, but these features make capture of the US executive more straightforward than capturing Europe. Pace Colm, US capture has occurred. What a tragedy, and not just for the US. One of my immediate family members is a US citizen. I have spent happy years there, and I love country music, but I cannot consider US macro management as a guiding light.

The stock market has been rescued by Obama, and the employment stats look better, but it is all based on historically unprecedented Fed activism, cheap money and expanding public debt. The crazy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the chronic principal agent problems which beset US healthcare, are governance problems of the first water. As for the 3k pages of Dodd Frank, the dogs on the street (K Street) know it will do nothing to rein in the leveraged speculating world dominating 1%.

http://books.google.ie/books/about/Great_Deformation.html?id=lKpLXwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

‘Music aside, Ireland has a poor craft base’

I refer to the broad range of manual crafts, and not to specialised white collar professional crafts, which are of a globally competitive standard. Hence the number of professional emigrants.

@ Francis
Enjoyed that post
It is very nice to see you make the connection between environmental pollution caused by the irresponsible emission of carbon and financial pollution created by the irresponsible creation and emission of credit by banks during the boom.
Nobody likes clearing up other people’s messes – do they!
We, in Ireland, are far from out of the woods. We had a lot of very bad credit pollute our economy – clean up is massive.

So many words and so little insight. I own Apple. My retirement TIAA-CREF accounts and my $403b plan with Fidelity Investments are loaded with Apple stock. Rest assured, that when I retire in a few years and use these funds to pay my bills I will be hit with significant personal income tax.

http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/147996

@ geronimo

With respect, maybe it is you who lacks insight.

‘ It would also be foolish beyond belief for the federal government to try to tax an American corporate transaction that takes place overseas. The last thing that anyone wants is for Apple to spin off into an independent foreign corporation’

Apple is not going to do any such thing, because it has got what it wants, namely the advantages of US domicile without the corresponding obligations. While the quoted judgement of Learned Hand makes good sense in a domestic context, the decision concerned a very small, domestic enterprise. Apple is a globally dominant business entity, with some of the sharpest (in every sense) advisers on the planet, so they have seen how this decision can be exploited in today’s poorly regulated global taxation space. The Hoover Institute is by no means wrong about the flaws in US governance, but they don’t really grasp the international context.

States like Ireland have to compete among each other for Apple’s grace and favour. Tim Cook has serious power, so stuffing a portfolio might be a way to share some of the gains…but hi tech stocks were hammered before, and the Bernanke put won’t last for ever…..

Dan O’Brien wrote in The Irish Times on Friday: “We have a long history of sidelining those who dissent from the consensus in order to close down debate on important issues.”

True and I did write as per above that his fellow editors share with their counterparts in decision making roles in both the private and public sectors, a conservatism that is inimical to the change which is needed in these turbulent times.

Sotto voce: The honest answer to the question as to why silence – – from ministers; Oireachtas; universities and other vested interests (!!) and the traditional media – – was the response to the failure of an investment of €23bn (inflation-adjusted) in a decade to meet the target for Ireland to be recognised as a “world class knowledge economy” by 2013, would reveal why Ireland stumbled from a property miracle to a phantom exports miracle, to a delusional knowledge economy on the back of foreign firms doing little research, and in the process landed on its face, without one credible jobs engine.

Ireland is like a company with too many products that is spread too thinly in too many markets.

When the situation gets more stark, there will be no silver bullet: the
actual Irish individual consumption per capita today is comparable with Italy’s. It’s longterm sustainable level may well be lower.

What is the sustainable cost structure? Why does the land rezoning system remain unreformed give the bubble experience?

A quarter century ago, limited language skills were seen as a problem that merited addressing. Hassle with teacher unions and the inflow of a large number of American multinationals took the pressure off.

Despite the single currency the poor indigenous performance continues in the European mainland.

An EU survey of more than 16,000 small and medium size companies (SMEs, < 250 employees) found that in Estonia, 23% of companies generated turnover from exports, Slovenia: 21%, Finland: 19%, Denmark: 17% and Ireland 11%. The proportion of SME revenue generated from exports in 2005 was Belgium: 15%, Estonia: 12%, Slovenia: 11%, Iceland: 10% and Ireland: 4.2%.

Enterprise Ireland said in 2009 that the markets, Germany, France, Benelux, Italy and Spain, collectively represent a GDP 3.9 times the size of the UK, yet the non-food exports by clients companies of the agency for these countries, was 40% of that of the UK.

The focus of public policy on exports has produced poor returns while the domestic market remains in a parlous state; the participation in Irish apprenticeship schemes is the worst in Western Europe.

It’s striking that Tesco and Dunnes Stores together employ about 30,000 people.

In Famine times, people in West Cork who lived a few miles from inland shores that were well stocked with shoals of herring and mackerel, died of starvation. Today, farmers in West Cork are more likely to shop at the local Tesco than grow produce themselves.

It’s also striking how important the agriculture and horticulture sectors are for the Netherlands – – the world’s second largest exporter of agri-food products, after the USA. The total value of Dutch agricultural exports was €75.4bn in 2012 compared with €9.02 bn (Bord Bia 2012) in Ireland, including drink.

Ireland’s output of potatoes is 5% of the Dutch level and turnover of the Dutch machinery for food processing sector is €2.3bn, of which 80% is exported.

They have had a tradition in the sectors but what tradition had poverty-stricken South Korea in world class manufacturing in the 1960s?

Ireland imports half a billion euros worth of fruit and vegetables annually and mushrooms are the only product with a significant value in exports in this sector.

There are few young farmers in Ireland and many older farmers get welfare for watching the grass grow…less than 10% of Irish farmland is used for crops compared with 56% in the Netherlands (the total land area is comparable with Munster’s.)

The development of farm markets is a very positive thing but artisan food production should be encouraged; the French system of giving priority to young farmers in land sales should be looked at and councils should establish permanent all-weather market outlets where startups could have stands at low rent.

The first step to salvation is to acknowledge the current reality and challenging outlook…and stop believing in fairytales!!

@Michael Hennigan

A few questions.

On apprenticeships, given that the industrial component of Ireland’s economy is small and getting smaller, why exactly would young people choose to take them? So they can emigrate to Germany? Do you think apprentice metalworkers will generate a demand for metalworking? Germany has an excellent system but its key driver is demand for apprentices.

On agriculture, do you think that Ireland’s climate might anything to do with our agricultural output? (The Netherlands. vs Ireland) The Netherlands has about 16% more hours of sunshine and average daily highs of ~3oC more than Ireland in the peak growing months – Ireland has a worse climate for most crops than most of continental Europe and given the required inputs of fuel and fertilizer it might be an area of competition we are wise to avoid. (Of course if Ireland had its own currency import substitution would be more practical)

Have you read Guns, Germs and Steel? Everyone should.

Your beef with Information Technology (the “Knowledge Economy”) is simply incomprehensible, it is one of the few areas where Ireland is not at a disadvantage to its global competitors (because of our climate, location and language).

You understand that Ireland’s poor performance at foreign languages is substantially because we already speak the second most spoken global language? (every time someone blames Irish for our lack of need to speak German I groan)

Finally, you did realize, when reading Dan O’Brien’s article, that it contained a series of reactionary dog whistles (immigration, the evils of the Good Friday Agreement, I swear he mentioned climate change in the first draft) under the cover of having a developed a concern with low pay? Possibly O’Briens most disingenuous article ever.

Ireland is like a company with too many products that is spread too thinly in too many markets.

Absolutely. Now what, given the destructive constraints of EMU, should we be focusing on?

Software seems reasonable (the shortage of programmers and engineers in the US is as much to do with the misery of the US working experience as anything else), green power looks like a good area since it also serves a national interest. It all sounds rather like what we are doing.

fyi

Turkey:
Erdoğan besieged in his ivory tower
3 June 2013 Radikal Istanbul

Why have the demonstrations against an urban planning project in Istanbul turned into protests against the power of the Prime Minister? Because he has refused to listen to criticism for far too long and seems determined to push ahead regardless, writes a columnist.

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/3837321-erdogan-besieged-his-ivory-tower

FYI INTERVIEW:

Angela Merkel on Europe: ‘We Are All in the Same Boat’

SPIEGEL: Chancellor Merkel, the US magazine Forbes has named you the world’s most powerful woman for the third time in a row. When was the last time you felt powerless?

Merkel: That isn’t a feeling I normally have […]

READ ON:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-angela-merkel-on-euro-crisis-and-arms-exports-a-903401.html

@ DoD

“Because he has refused to listen to criticism for far too long and seems determined to push ahead regardless, writes a columnist.”

Very oriental, that sort of attititude . Would never happen in the Holy Roman Empire.

@Shay Begorrah.
You are being simplistic and polemical. You say the key driver for restoration of long lost apprenticeships in machining, toolmaking, mechanical design, electronic circuit design etc etc is demand for such apprentices. While our national systems subsidise training and CPD for twice as many medical graduates as the state can assimilate, and we try and dismantle the shambles of obsolete and inefficient training in construction trades that resulted from the State being allowed to take over vocational training.
You may not be aware of the fact that many engineering services and skills have either vanished from Ireland or taken refuge in specialist niches typically serving a small coterie of US MNC’s and are no longer able or interested in serving the needs of small indigenous engineering enterprises of the sort that power Germany. This is a major challenge for engineering businesses that wish to locate design and manufacturing activities in Ireland rather than rely on increasingly expensive Asian sources and differentiate themselves from the box-shifting activity that is the Irish norm.
There is no single best starting point in trying to grow the latter types of enterprises – the task must be attacked on many fronts simultaneously. I am convinced that broadening the vocational training system beyond construction, welding and media skills and into light engineering is one such ‘front’ and is also a means to help reconnect Irish nationals with practical creative skills (e.g. design) that are valued in Ireland and almost everywhere, and are essential if an engineering sector is to regrow.
There are many other ‘fronts’ that also need attention in the struggle to rebuild sustainable indigenous business, not necessarily by the state. The language issue is a real impediment and is one of a number of reasons why the recent crop of FDI web and financial services operations recruit so many non-residents to come work in Ireland. The diverse nationalities on display at lunchtimes at East Wall business park in Dublin, home to Yahoo and a number of other large employers is a sight to behold. Irish kids in state schools (uniquely in Western Europe I believe) have no exposure to foreign languages (except Irish) during the primary cycle. We persist in using perhaps 25% of precious contact time teaching them Irish, religious dogma and patriotic songs.
I am unconvinced by the merits of state-planned enterprise focal points, whether software/gaming (competing with India), cleantech (a huge and diverse area), medical devices/pharma (dominated by the US and with little commercially-relevant achievement to show in two decades of trying) or nanotech (another diverse collection of technologies and markets most entirely lacking in Ireland). Citizens are better deciding these things themselves. I think it is better to provide citizens with quality opportunities in Ireland to develop common foundation skills and languages relevant to all sorts of technology-based business (better vocational training and apprenticeships), then to help them to undertake CPD in bigger countries who can provide the quality learning experiences and challenges that Ireland cannot, and stay connected with them and ease their path back to Ireland for those that are interested in that.
You seem to feel that criticism of the “Knoweldge Economy” strategy is incomprehensible. The huge edifice of third level graduate and postgraduate training apparatus grown from a combination of Mr Feeney’s philanthropy and public funding has conflated the teaching of basic professional skills with the many constituent parts of enterprise; business research, technology and product development, IP creation and capture, management development etc. Within the EU this approach seems unique to Ireland. Without wishing to be remotely critical of universities or ‘ninth level Ireland’ which has evolved and grown its teaching and research businesses admirably, it is a stretch to believe that groups of early to mid-career technologists and engineers with limited or no industry experience, attracted into an academic setting on short term contracts and led by academic PI’s, are a credible substitute for the services of businesspeople; management, technology and design consultancies; test houses and engineering services businesses and real entrepreneurs. Suffice it to say that the commercial and tax farming results of this policy to date speak for themselves.
In many similar discussions about enterprise development the ‘crowding out’ effect of state agencies on enterprise is ignored. In an environment as small as Ireland this effect can be very large. I am inclined to believe that the dearth of indigenous business with significant internal RDI capability reflects two things: the disruptive effect of a decade-long FIRE and construction bubble and an explosive growth in state-managed and financed research organisations with preferential access to development capital.
Other EU countries see enterprise as predominantly the role of private industry rather than the state, and policies aligned with this viewpoint seem to result in a carpet of healthy indigenous enterprises. With the right environment, it seems reasonable to believe that Ireland would be no different.

@Tony Owens

Let me start at the end.

In many similar discussions about enterprise development the ‘crowding out’ effect of state agencies on enterprise is ignored.

Sadly, no.

In terms of access to capital “crowding out” should only become an issue when an economy is close to full output, which it aint. Oddly Paul Krugman mentioned this earlier in the month – I guess it is the current “five minute hate” in right libertarian land.

This is not just Krugman by the way, “crowding out” is one of those things that is never a problem except when it is still not a serious problem (like too much fun).

I am unconvinced by the merits of state-planned enterprise focal points

Well, that settles it.

Seriously, that is a perfectly fine political position but it is not a presentation of the evidence and after the global financial crisis I think most people would like an answer on economic policy that encompassed more than “Leave it to the market.”. We did after all leave it to the market, that is why we are here.

Other EU countries see enterprise as predominantly the role of private industry rather than the state, and policies aligned with this viewpoint seem to result in a carpet of healthy indigenous enterprises. With the right environment, it seems reasonable to believe that Ireland would be no different.

Other EU countries? Ireland is not Cuba, our level of public sector employment is the European average and much, much lower than other more successful small countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland). These are the numbers from 2008 (imagine the numbers now).

http://www.oecd.org/gov/pem/publicemploymentkeyfigures.htm

This is genuinely confusing stuff Mr Owens. Ireland should already an easy easy place for entrepreneurship (low taxes, low corporation taxes, wage deflation). Is the private sector waiting in Galt’s Gulch for a signal (the appearance of the confidence fairy maybe?) before they spring into action and rescue us? How is government enterprise policy stopping private enterprise from working its magic?

@all

Glasshouses, energy, and hydroponics and one can grow practically anything. This is where Die Nederlands leads …

Feasible here IF natural gas available …

@Francis re Dresden:

Good luck over there! Looks like the peak water level should happen tonight or tomorrow morning. Good to see ordinary citizens pitching in to prep flood defences.

@Paul Quigley

Lets see what we can sort of agree on here.

Firstly “crowding out” is just not a thing. SMEs inability to access credit has nothing to do with competing with the state for funds and everything to do with the fear that economic contraction is going to increase the amount of bad debt banks have to cope with, a position private investors share. I also do not buy that all our potentially entrepreneurial talent is in the moderately sized public sector but also that these same crafty public sector types can not understand entrepreneurship. (being honest I am more of an entrepeneurial state person anyway).

Secondly we do have a serious problem with property, thanks to NAMA and the various bailouts the state is invested, in multiple senses, in propping up property prices (or at least in not allowing losses to be crystallised). This is a market distortion that is really screwing us up and it has some degree of popular support because of the prevalence of property “investment” in the middle and upper classes and the European elite position on financial capitalism (no contagion thank you, we have an election).

Thirdly because of EMU (or the lack of a Eurozone level bank resolution regime) we can not deal with the property crash associated bank crisis in the normal way – EMU as is is a weight around our neck.

EMU, global financial crisis and Ireland’s fetish for property and PD solutions (Boston or Berlin? Why not the worst of both worlds?) got us into trouble but what is stopping us getting out is degenerate Eurozone fiscal and monetary policy.

@ Shay Begorrah 

Somewhere in between a farmer buying imported vegetables in a Tesco shop in Bandon and the Netherlands, the size of Munster, being the second biggest agri-foods exporter in the world, there maybe some lesson to learn. People opine about Iceland’s recovery. It’s own resources are a key factor.

Ditto for the formal work-experience training systems in Europe.

For young people who are not enthused about academic learning, a skill can make a huge difference – even if he or she has to emigrate for a time.

As for Paul Quigley’s point about ‘crowding out,’ it is very evident in the attention of ministers.

US firm job announcements and research grants/ related issues are what they seem to focus on.

Tony Owens provides a excellent contribution based on his high tech sector experience.

R&D is important in many economic sectors and Carbery, which opened as Carbery Milk Products in Ballineen, 10 miles west of Bandon in the 1960s is a very good example. At the same time the first factory to open in Bandon in 40 years, began operations.

Carbery was a joint venture between Express Foods of the UK and 4 West Cork co-ops (they acquired full control in 1992). It began making cheese and has extended to food ingredients.

It now has 3 R&D centres – one in Ballineen and one each in the UK and US.

The R&D is very important to it as it focuses on heath and sports-related food and drinks.

It continues to be a big buyer of milk in West Cork.

In contrast, a spinoff from university research with potential is likely to make the founders wealthy and initial funders, but when one is usually acquired by a bigger US firm, there is little payback for the Irish economy.

Can Dublin be seriously viewed as the ‘Internet capital of Europe’ when most of the firms are foreign ones, and they may be just hosting sales operations?

Public research should be funded but it shouldn’t get the lion’s share of enterprise funding.

Why is there so little said on outcomes?

@ Tony Owens

I agree with Al! Exceptionally well put contribution and clearly on the basis of detailed knowledge.

However, all is not lost!

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/agribusiness-and-food/chinese-minister-says-ireland-leading-the-whole-world-in-agricultural-science-and-technology-1.1415822

As in the case of the Netherlands and, indeed, countries in general, the basis of their success lies – almost invariably – in some comparative advantage – which can be something as ephemeral as the level of education – and with a long history.

As to the problem of “grantepreneurs”, one of the benefits of running out of money is that priorities have to be set. The question is whether they will be.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/troika-unease-at-pace-of-health-reforms-1.1416030

@Michael Hennigan

I agree with most of your points but I am afraid no one leaves the thread without admitting that crowding out is not Ireland’d problem, not in any commonly understood sense.

As for Paul Quigley’s point about ‘crowding out,’ it is very evident in the attention of ministers.

There may be a case that the distribution of government resources on promoting enterprises is badly thought out but this would have the opposite effect to “crowding out” as the profitable areas would be left to the dynamic and thrusting heroes of the private sector to exploit.

Crowding out in the sense that Tony Owens used it is a laissez faire speech tic that prevents people asking the question whether Ireland’s lack of domestic enterprise is a national character flaw or a sign that a small country on the edge of Europe with no real industrial base should not trust its industrial policy to a combination of chance and greed.

@Tony Owens

Thank you for the explanation, I will try and get my head around it.

@ tony

You are too modest. No ‘simple businessman’ worries about the productive use of public money. The reality is that you are demonstrating a lot more social responsibility than those who supposedly represent the public interest. A credit to our nation if I may say so. 
Much state-sponsored tech investment is like the property bubble. Great buildings in the middle of nowhere. I took the slow bus from Galway to Dublin yesterday. It’s like the Stations of the Cross (no offence) of mal-investment.

Your outlook meshes very well with Richard Fedigan’s ideas about fostering the ability to dance in the global technical space. He sees the marketing opportunities, and you can see the potential production space.

In the way, we have the plodders and the fixers, the gatekeepers and the placeholders, the short-termists and the pensionistas, who wouldn’t recognise an original idea if slapped them in the face. Not a note in their heads.

What we seem to have is the politicisation of the R&D process, and its identification with the fate of our third level institutions. The state tail wagging the market dog.

Absent the development of a healthy, productive economy, the high tech academic sector is ultimately an export machine. Chuck Feeney’s cheap funds for academia have probably been, like the low interest rates in the euro, a barrier to change, and a subsidy to a failing status quo.

Emigration is, of course, one of the traditional Stations of the Cross. God bless the work, and never say never
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An example of a durable firm: Carl Elsener III, grandson of, Carl Elsener, the inventor of the Swiss army knife, died aged 90, on Tuesday.

Carl IV now runs the firm.

From a cutlery workshop in 1884 to Victorinox, the largest cutlery producer in Europe, employ close to 2,000 people, 900 of them at its headquarters in Ibach, Switzerland. The company produces 60,000 Swiss army knives every day.