The Irish Economy and the Inconvenient Truth - by Michael Hennigan
In the week that US mobile phone giant Motorola effectively announced the closure of its software centre in Cork, with the loss of 350 jobs, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin received a copy of the National Competitiveness Council's report Benchmarking Ireland’s Performance.
The NCC report noted that Ireland’s economic performance remains strong but warned that the underlying source of this growth has shifted from exports towards construction activity and consumer demand. It said that the current account with the rest of the world has gone into deficit and that in a small regional economy like Ireland, economic prosperity ultimately depends on our ability to sell goods and services abroad. The report said that worryingly, our productivity growth rates, which were among the highest in the OECD, have slowed, while growth in domestic demand is being financed by high levels of personal borrowing.
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