Follow through will be the test if seeds of growth to bear fruit

NEARLY 200 of the best international business brains converged on Dublin over the weekend to help inspire those charged with grasping an ailing Celtic Tiger by the scruff of the neck and forcing it back to its former winning ways.

When the forum was mooted by economist and author David McWilliams the Government, probably for a mixture of reasons, decided to run with his proposition.

Sceptics saw it as a limp effort by a government desperate for some positive press as it choked on a crisis for which it is largely responsible.

However, far from an empty gesture, looking at the list of those business luminaries who turned up at their own expense the event probably represented the biggest and most impressive collection of entrepreneurs present here for a single occasion.

Even before any ideas were put forward, this was an event of historic importance and McWilliams and the Department of Foreign Affairs deserve credit for the initiative.

People like Craig Barrett, the former boss of Intel International; Alan Joyce, the Irishman who is head of Qantas Airlines in Australia and several other local and international business personalities turned up at the event, including Irish financier Dermot Desmond.

Also at the event were Denis O’Brien of Digicel and Stan McCarthy of the Kerry Group and some other local leading Irish business people, all of whom brought a domestic dimension to the two days of talks and search for ideas.

Apart from the possibility of thousands of jobs being created from the five projects being sent to government within the next four weeks, the sessions could also result in millions of euro ploughed in to the economy by international investors.

Those who talked to the media after their closed-door sessions ended refused to give any air time to the banking crisis that seems to have the Irish politicians in a twist.

US Ambassador to Ireland Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, said Ireland was “no different” on that score to many other countries, including the US.

One other clear message over the two days was the importance of a positive outcome on Lisbon.

US businessmen in particular see it as vital that Ireland portrays itself as a gateway to Europe and as totally committed to full membership of the EU.

A Yes vote is critical in terms of a confidence boost to US firms looking to this country, according to several of those who spoke at the various discussions.

The strength of Irish culture and how it can act as a magnet to attract investment to Ireland was also cited.

In the final plenary session Dermot Desmond said that we should build the biggest cultural university in the world here to allow those with an enormous interest in Ireland to come here and learn what we are about.

Desmond said we needed to “monitise” what this country had to offer.

However, there was some tough talking as well.

Craig Barrett attacked our lack of commitment to education and our failure to ensure we had a decent broadband system.

Overall the event was seen as a huge success and the view now is that there should be a follow-up next year.

This idea was mooted at the last session and Micheál Martin said he would consider the suggestion.

What is vital now however is that the Government is seen to act on what emerged from the weekend.

Failure to do so could cost us dear.