‘Give business leaders seats in Senate’

UNIVERSITY of Limerick founding president Ed Walsh has urged the Taoiseach to answer the calls for a reformed Oireachtas by filling the upcoming Seanad vacancies with leading business figures rather than seasoned politicians.

Mr Walsh – now president emeritus of UL – was addressing ISME’s annual national conference, in Dublin, yesterday. Three vacancies within the Seanad are due to be filled by the middle of next month. Mr Walsh said yesterday at least two should be senior business figures – naming the likes of Denis Brosnan, Michael O’Leary, Michael Somers and Intel Ireland general manager Jim O’Hara as possible examples.

Opening yesterday’s conference, ISME chairwoman Eilis Quinlan called for the abolition of social partnership – saying it was, in its current guise, “dead in the water”; the implementation of a National Representation Forum to drive recovery and small firms to be central to decision-making processes.

However, trade union Unite slammed the organisation as being “out of touch with reality and its membership”, over its demands for public sector wage cuts. The union’s regional secretary for Ireland, Jimmy Kelly, said: “They are completely out of touch with economic reality and with the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in Ireland.”

But Ms Quinlan added: “The trade unions – in particular the public sector unions – have been allowed ride roughshod over the economy through the so-called partnership process and in dealings with Government. This has led to a ‘bloated’ public service, a luxury the country can no longer afford. With the Government needing to achieve a €4bn saving in 2010 there is no option but to reduce the cost of running the public service, contrary to union threats.”

Elsewhere, Bank of Ireland director of business banking Mark Cunningham told delegates that his bank remained fully open for business and for giving SME credit, but is not willing to lend to under-capitalised businesses. Mr Cunningham said that, as of the end of September, Bank of Ireland had lent €2.1bn to the SME sector and is approving about 81% of all loan applications from small businesses. He added that while the banks were not exclusively to blame for the downturn here, they did need to apologise for some of their actions.

Economist Jim Power, meanwhile, said that the Government’s €4bn savings plan for the upcoming budget won’t go far enough, as we’re already adding €500m a week to the national debt and “building up a debt legacy that will haunt future generations”.

Mr Power said that economic growth trends in France and Germany bode well for Ireland, as much of their growth was centred around export-orientated businesses; but added that any growth here will be gradual rather than sudden.

“It will remain a difficult and challenging environment here for the next few years. Twelve years of financial mis-management means a sudden recovery to rude health isn’t going to happen,” he said.