We need to end bureaucracy and reach out to rebuild economy

AT A time of crisis it can pay to be counter-intuitive, to have ideas that seem completely at odds with perceived wisdom.

One successful entrepreneur, an American based in Cork who has become familiar to the nation because of his role on the Dragon’s Den tv programme, has one such three point plan of the kind you are almost certain to never hear from the politicians (of all kinds) we elect to lead us: he wants to bring 75,000 highly skilled foreigners per annum to work into the country, double the population of the country over the next 20 years and develop a special relationship with China that would allow automatic 30 day visitor visas and the right of residency for its citizens if an educational course is completed in the country.

Now that is counter-intuitive when you consider that unemployment has soared to over 14% of the workforce, with over 450,000 people in receipt of employment related social welfare, and that emigration, especially among the young, is soaring again. Where would 75,000 extra workers a year get jobs when we don’t have enough for the people living here already? How would we cope with the extra demands upon health and education services if we had to cope with all of those extra people and their families and don’t have enough money as it is? What would happen to Irish culture if you had such a massive influx of foreigners?

But look at it in an unconventional way, as Sean O’Sullivan asks us to do. Look at the opportunities. If these 75,000 people set up, or worked for, new established business, they would all pay tax, helping us to reduce our crippling public debt. They would buy or rent houses and apartments, using up the vacant housing stock and, in time, creating the demand for new construction and jobs in that sector. There could be up to six new jobs, available to Irish people, for every one of those 75,000 tech jobs created for foreigners, he estimated (although the more conventional measure is usually three). There would be demand for services, but this would help to maintain and create jobs for nurses, doctors, teachers and gardaí, keeping schools, hospitals and Garda stations open throughout the country.

And it’s not as if we don’t have the necessary land space in the country. We have half the land mass of Britain but just one-fifteenth of its population. Holland is the size of Munster but has two and a half times our population. The internal economy is in major decline; it needs the stimulation of extra consumers.

And wouldn’t it be hypocritical of us to deny foreigners the opportunity to live here when we have exported so many people over the last two centuries. If we feel others should welcome us to their countries then why shouldn’t we welcome others to our shores? Some people have the prejudice that people come here only for welfare benefits, but all reliable international studies show this not to be the case: people who go to the trouble of emigrating tend to do so to make a much better life for themselves. They want to work, to earn money, not draw benefits. They bring skills and endeavour.

Immigrants also tend to adopt the culture of their new country while retaining links to their home. Are we not confident enough about Irish culture that we think we’d be overrun with new or different ways that are not to our liking? Have we not seen how well eastern Europeans integrated over the last decade? As it happens we may have an immediate need. The country has succeeded enormously in getting technology firms to locate here and an indigenous industry has developed to compliment this, especially in writing software. Unfortunately, however, this growth is being curtailed already because we do not have a sufficiently large number of people with the required skills to get jobs with these companies. As it is O’Sullivan said that about 80% of Google’s hires in Ireland are from outside the country. Some companies are choosing to locate or expand in other parts of the EU simply to get people. Yet the Government’s policy, according to examples given by O’Sullivan in a recent speech to the Digital Ireland Forum organised by siliconrepublic.com, has been to reject applications for visa from skilled and required individuals from outside of the EU.

He gave an example of trying to hire a non-EU national for his mapping company Avego that he has established in Kinsale. He was refused consistently despite having no realistic alternative to hiring this person. It is not the first time. “We no longer live in the day and age where the manufacturing jobs of a digital economy are line workers, they are knowledge workers, we have to get these knowledge workers from all over the world if we want to build our economy. We are killing ourselves via a bureaucratic death wish from our own Government that on one hand wants to create a digital economy but is doing everything to prevent it.”

He claims that other countries are not afraid to import skilled workers. “When the education system cannot produce these people, we can create jobs and prosperity locally by opening borders. In Silicon Valley, 40% of residents come from outside the US. Silicon Valley has become the Mecca of the technology world, not because of beaches or traffic but because the best and brightest go there and thankfully people in US are open to working with culturally diverse people. If we want to create Ireland as the Silicon Valley of Europe open your borders,” he said.

His business partner Bill Liao, who came into our radio studio with O’Sullivan on Tuesday to talk about these ideas, had a similar experience to relate. He is Australian and his father is Chinese. He made tens of millions in the tech sector but came to Kinsale, where he has lived now for four and a half years, and where he met O’Sullivan, because, among other things, he liked our weather.

He was frustrated by the length of time it took him to get working broadband — which is as important to the 21st century economy as electricity — and a work permit to stay here. Liao is creating jobs in Ireland, investing in a range of tech-savvy companies that are benefiting from his money and experience. He is also supporting a remarkable young Corkman called James Whelton in the establishment of a network of computer clubs called Coder Dojo, where about 1,000 young people each week can learn the language of programming and the waiting lists are longer.

Yet Liao had to apply four times to get a visa to stay in this country. The attitude apparently displayed towards him by some civil servants was such that it’s amazing that he stuck at it.

Liao suspects his Chinese surname may have had something to do with the reluctance to allow him to stay. This is remarkable when you consider how our politicians are courting China presently for our exports and for investments. But we should be as interested in China’s people if that’s the case. O’Sullivan believes that by 2030 two-thirds of the world’s middle class will be Chinese. He wants us to reach out by offering readily available 30-day tourist visas to Chinese people and has recommended allowing overseas students who gain qualifications in Ireland to remain here and contribute to the economy. (The potential for throwing our colleges open to Chinese students, who want to learn English, must be immense. They can pay the fees too that would subsidise our education system).

O’Sullivan wants to make “Ireland the gateway to Europe for the Chinese in same way that Ireland has been a gateway for America.” It’ll be hard to do that if the gates are shut to its people.

“No man is an island and Ireland is not an island, either — it is globally interdependent,” O’Sullivan told his audience. “But despite being a country that has generated so many emigrants — we have a tight and closed border, even when people from outside have so much to give...If we think of ‘ourselves alone’ in the world we live, that is a path for disaster that has put Ireland back for decades. When we have opened ourselves up we were rewarded with growth jobs, economic development and prosperity.”

It seems a better way that the austerity being imposed upon us, doesn’t it? It requires a bit of vision, imagination and action though. Do we still have that at official level? And are we mature enough to take the alternative views of those who have settled here, such as O’Sullivan and Liao, seriously?

* The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.