The National Competitiveness Council has just produced its report for 2009. It deserves much more than the passing glance that it got in the media. Confronting the crisis in our public finances and in our banking system currently rule the airwaves. However, they are, as the economists would put it, “necessary but not sufficient” conditions for economic renewal. Efforts on banking and the public finances would collapse without the keystone of improved competitiveness to form the bridge to recovery. Continue Reading

On the last occasion most Irish voters asked themselves “Is Lisbon the best deal that can be done for Europe?

If that’s the question, it is not entirely surprising that a majority answered ‘No’. I remember my first employer, as I laboured long to produce a perfect piece of work, commenting that “often the best is the enemy of the good”. Perfection is seldom achievable. If this is true of the work of a single person, how much less likely is it that a Treaty designed by 27 member states will be perfect? Continue Reading

Soaring Spirits

I am very privileged to have seen my two favourite music acts perform in Dublin within a fortnight. In age, they are separated by nearly half a century. One is an icon for a whole generation. The other is just tapping on the door of wider recognition. Continue Reading