The Irish Model

[Bosh]

With a lot of talk on other threads about economic reform in Europe, I'm surprised how little Ireland gets talked about. After all, Ireland's done very impressively economically of late (especially compared to the rest of Western Europe), and I'm curious why more people don't look to it for inspiration. I didn't know much about Irish economics so I looked around the internet and aside from some of Friedman's standard asshattery, I found some interesting information about the Irish economy:

-High quality free education. I'm guessing that this is a big one.
-High levels of foreign direct investment.
-Relatively low amounts of tax and regulation.
-Low deficets and general fiscal restraint.
-A surprisingly-centralized system of wage bargaining.
-A relatively-young population.
-They speak English.

Am I missing anything? It seems that at least some of this is worth emulating in continental Europe, especially university reform to get the quality of universities back to near the top internationally and fiscal sanity...

[Barnabas]

eu subsidies

[Seeker]

1. They started from so low that any growth is bound to look impressive

2. They don't have to pay for the 'assimilation cost' of large Muslim populations like in the rest of Western Europe.

3. Education is both free and good. Can this possibly last?

4. English speakers.

5. One generation saves, the next invests, the next spends...

6. They have slightly less of a 'pensioner crisis' than other EU countries?? dunno about this one...didn't they have a lot of kids in the 60s-70s?

7. Irish culture is geared to education in specific fields that are internationally marketable (entertainment, writing, music, "media", and allied)

8. Lots of now well-off diaspora communities make for ready made business networks. There are large, fairly well-to-do Irish communities in most former Empire places.

somewhat unrelated personal experience: In a large class here at Western university (where I continue to persue my MA), 1000+ students, of the Caucasian students, at least 60-70% either identified themselves as 'Irish' or having an 'Irish' mother or father.....lol I guess all the protestants in the 20s were right, we really did breed 'em out. Maybe relates to the Irish emphasis on education, especially in the arts?

[Theben]

That Viagra was responsible for their initial growth*?


*- That's ECONOMIC growth, you pervs.

[Spiffor]

Re: The Irish Model

Originally posted by Bosh
[...]
-They speak English.
[...]

It's huge. Portugal has tried similar policies, but wasn't nearly as successful, notably because of language.

Thanks to English, Ireland has a strong advantage in attracting international investment (though it is not their only edge, of course), and it has no trouble attracting a skilled workforce from the rest of Europe.

[Solly]

Receiving billions from the EU usually helps.

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
eu subsidies

[Sikander]

Re: The Irish Model

Crap, I thought this was going to be a red headed babe thread!

[Spiffor]

Portugal and Greece have received throngs of EU subsidies as well. Yet, they haven't been nearly as successful. And for some time, Ireland hasn't been successful with its EU subsidies alone either.

Ireland has smart economic policies, but the EU would go nowhere if all countries applied them: their low taxes create a comparative advantage over other countries for investment. If all countries lowered their taxes, the amount of investment in the EU as a whole would NOT automagically grow like crazy - there would be winner and loser countries, and the EU as a whole wouldn't benefit much (actually, the average European would probably lose because of the lower quality of public services).

Besides, Ireland's growth comes mostly from high added value sectors such as computers and high-end services, and there's only so many jobs that can be created in those fields. It can be a huge sector in a country of 4 million that cares for the needs of a 450 million continent. It cannot be huge for the 450 million europeans, at least not now.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
eu subsidies

I think this is exaggerated, since almost all of those subsidies were going into agriculture, which isn't where Ireland has been growing at all. A case could be made that the subsidies distorted the Irish economy enough (by making more people stay in the country than would have otherwise) that they didn't do much to help out the economy in the long term.

1. They started from so low that any growth is bound to look impressive

2. They don't have to pay for the 'assimilation cost' of large Muslim populations like in the rest of Western Europe.

3. Education is both free and good. Can this possibly last?

4. English speakers.

5. One generation saves, the next invests, the next spends...

6. They have slightly less of a 'pensioner crisis' than other EU countries?? dunno about this one...didn't they have a lot of kids in the 60s-70s?

7. Irish culture is geared to education in specific fields that are internationally marketable (entertainment, writing, music, "media", and allied)

8. Lots of now well-off diaspora communities make for ready made business networks. There are large, fairly well-to-do Irish communities in most former Empire places.

somewhat unrelated personal experience: In a large class here at Western university (where I continue to persue my MA), 1000+ students, of the Caucasian students, at least 60-70% either identified themselves as 'Irish' or having an 'Irish' mother or father.....lol I guess all the protestants in the 20s were right, we really did breed 'em out. Maybe relates to the Irish emphasis on education, especially in the arts?

Good points all. How's your master's program been going these days? Should've emailed you but I've been lazy...

It's huge. Portugal has tried similar policies, but wasn't nearly as successful, notably because of language.

Well as far as the English language things goes, a lot of countries in Northern Europe tend to have very high numbers of people with good English. In countries like, say, the Netherlands or Norway it wouldn't be too hard to get near-universal English fluency among students, right? In any case, it makes sense to make learning English a high priority and countries that don't do that (like, say, Japan) are probably going to feel some pain in the future.

Ireland has smart economic policies, but the EU would go nowhere if all countries applied them

I'm sure there's some bits of it that are more widely-applicable. For example good quality free university education, continental universities have been fairly stagnant for a while now...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Bosh
Well as far as the English language things goes, a lot of countries in Northern Europe tend to have very high numbers of people with good English. In countries like, say, the Netherlands or Norway it wouldn't be too hard to get near-universal English fluency among students, right? In any case, it makes sense to make learning English a high priority and countries that don't do that (like, say, Japan) are probably going to feel some pain in the future.

Absolutely, and learning English has become an education priority even in France . But the fact that they speak English goes further than simply having a population who speaks it as a second language.

If you go to Sweden, you'll be hard press to find somebody who doesn't speak English (during my vacation there, I found one such person). However, everything is written in Swedish only, except in touristy areas. The administration works in Swedish. At work, people speak Swedish. As it should be. But obviously, moving to Sweden means you have to learn a new language. Same if you invest in Sweden and want to be active in your company (say, if you want to create your SME, or if you have no Swedish-speaker you trust to lead the Swedish operations). This is not the case in Ireland. And it makes a world of difference.

[our_man]

All good points, except the university system. I'm a bit bitter about how my country treated me with regard to this, so I'll explain a bit, even though I'll probably sound a little biased.

-High quality free education. I'm guessing that this is a big one.

Irish universities are good, but not brilliant. If you take a look at the world league table, only Trinity College Dublin (University of Dublin) is in the top 100. I think UCD is in the top 250. They would be at the lower end of the scale when comparing to the original EU 15. They do extremely well considering the chronic lack of funding since the abolishment of fees in the early 1990's, but the signs are that things are going to get worse before they get better.

Having free education will only work if the government is willing to make up for the shortfall, and it isn't. This is most evident in our medical schools, which now seem to operate on a 'Foreigners First' policy. Almost two-thirds of the medical places are reserved for foreign students, who pay high fees but in return get easier entry requirements than Irish students. How this isn't discrimination is beyond me. A substantial number are from the Middle East and simply aren't good enough to get into British schools, so they come to Ireland. For Americans it's an alternative to going to the Caribbean. In this way the medical schools can make up for the shortfall in finance. They were the first to cop onto this, but other faculties in Ireland are following suit.

Gradually Irish students will be squeezed out of the most prestigious courses in favour of fee-paying foreign students unless something is done. Already a lot of us have started heading over to the UK where the university system is a bit fairer - I'm attending Glasgow, one of the best medical schools in the UK while back in Ireland, 3 of the 5 medical school would have considered me 'ineligible' even to apply to them.

The problem with this is that there isn't enough doctors to sustain the country's health service, so Ireland has to import vast numbers of doctors (and nurses) from abroad to prevent the system from collapsing.

There are some positive points to Irish 3rd level education though. The notable exception (and the thing which makes the most sense to talk about given the context) is our postgraduate business schools. You pay fees to attend these, but TCD's business school and UCD's Smurfit School of Business are considered to be among the top in Europe. This only reinforces the fact that our university system desperately needs more funding in order for Ireland to remain at the top. Either the government foots the bill, or fees are reintroduced (I'm in favour of the latter).

Oh well, sorry about the rant, but I just didn't want people to come away with a glowing notion of Irish education when there is so much wrong with it.

Receiving billions from the EU usually helps.

God bless the EU. We milked them as much as we could.

[Drake Tungsten]

In any case, it makes sense to make learning English a high priority and countries that don't do that (like, say, Japan) are probably going to feel some pain in the future.

Japan is definitely making English a high priority. It remains to be seen how effective these new programs will be however. I'm pretty pessimistic.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

In any case, it makes sense to make learning English a high priority and countries that don't do that (like, say, Japan) are probably going to feel some pain in the future.

Japan is definitely making English a high priority. It remains to be seen how effective these new programs will be however. I'm pretty pessimistic.

I guess I should have qualified that with saying making it a priority and then actually doing something useful When I went to Japan on my visa runs I was really shocked how many fewer people spoke English there compared to Seoul. When I was stranded in Osaka for the night I couldn't find ANYONE who'd give my any useful information until I ran into a Korean

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Bosh

I think this is exaggerated, since almost all of those subsidies were going into agriculture, which isn't where Ireland has been growing at all. A case could be made that the subsidies distorted the Irish economy enough (by making more people stay in the country than would have otherwise) that they didn't do much to help out the economy in the long term.

A lot of the infrastructure comes from the EU. Travel around by car and you'll see hundreds of EU flags stating that this and that road was funded by the EU.