St Patrick would not be impressed these days

WOULD St Patrick be impressed if he came back to Ireland today? This seems a good starting point this week.

Would he be preaching boom or bust on property and what would he make of current sate of the stock market? For sure he would be pleased to see the immigrants who are starting to fill our churches again, and he might be reassured that his mission 1,600 years ago wasn’t in vain.

But he might rapidly regret ever having the dream that sent him this direction in the first instance.

The chances are he would never get to preach again because he would have been corralled as a navvy to work on some building site before he could hit Grafton Street.

However the most likely scenario is that, having had a quick look round, he would rapidly conclude the entire country was going to hell in a bucket and high tail it back to heaven without looking back. There is no doubt that the Ireland of today would be unrecognisable to our patron saint.

The good old days as Patrick knew them are long gone and the progressives would utter a “Thank God” to that. What’s worrying the boom merchants, however, is the nervousness that has crept into the market and the surge in job losses in Ireland since the start of the year: 3,500 have been lost.

US multinationals are under pressure to cut costs. Competition is intense and the pressure to deliver better figures is forcing firms to cut jobs, and that decision is what is driving the job losses that are starting to undermine confidence.

Bourns Electronics is closing its manufacturing operation at the Mahon Industrial Estate in Cork with the loss of 80 jobs. It blames operational costs in Ireland and global competition. At its peak it employed 430. Perhaps more worrying was the decision of IreTex packaging, with operations in Limerick, Kildare and Meath, for 30 years to shut up shop. This fallowed the termination of a long-term contract by Dell. It has emerged also that Dell is also looking at its costs as it faces mounting pressure from HP and other commuter manufacturers.

The big fear for this economy is that the Dells of this world will find doing business here too costly and will eventually be forced to scale back their operations here.

Recent analysis by Dolmen Stockbrokers and others suggests the cost base here will drive more US firms form Ireland unless those issues are addressed.

The Government might start by doing down the cost base, but ministers appear not to grasp the serious ness of the problem.

Long-term, IBEC, the major employer body says the only solution is to move up the value-added chain.

There is no point in either in being in low-end manufacturing where margins are being cut back to nothing.

Much better to be involved in areas such as traded services and high-end manufacturing where products offer an edge to those using them and make real money for the business.

We still have a chance to do that. But we have to act before our 25% exposure to construction starts to crumble. That exposure is tied up with the get-rich-quick mentality and leaves not lasting legacy other than stinking rich millionaires like Sean Dunne and his ilk.

In its most recent economic review, IBEC summed it up as follows: “It is time to take stock and steer policy towards equipping the economy to produce high-value knowledge- based goods and services in an increasingly challenging global trading environment.”

That in essence is what we need to do.

Stock market uncertainty is part of the reality of globalisation.

Not much can be done about that except perhaps to pray to St Patrick if you think he might still be listening and that he still cares.

However, we can change our economic policy without any help from above.