Ireland in 2016
One of the biggest surprises since returning to Ireland has been how endemic bullying is within our institutions. Occasionally examples make it into the public domain with Tom Gilmartin during the Planning Tribunals, Colm O’Gorman during the church abuse scandals, army whistleblower Dr Tom Clonan and various witnesses during the banking tribunal. Like many graduates of NUIG I find the treatment of Prof Sheehy Skeffington and other members of staff wholly unacceptable. Thanks to the bravery of these individuals going public we briefly get a glimpse into the dark underside of our institutions. Front line staff do a stellar job operating under resourced within extremely challenging conditions. They repeated encounter bullying to stay quiet, stay on message and suffer in silence.
Forty five plus years dependency on EU Funds and FDI fostered a grantrepreneurship culture here. This institutional mindset is slowly changing. An important first step was the reform of our archaic bankruptcy laws which operated as a modern day debtors prison. Entrepreneurial spirit was suppressed with the unfortunate result that conservatism and aversion to risk took root. There was little incentive to invest in entrepreneurs when investment in property yielded higher returns with little risk. Thanks to advocacy from people like David Hall and political support from Peter Mathews and Willie Penrose a one year bankruptcy term was signed into law. The next step needs to be revision of our tax code. Failure was once seen as a black mark and social stigma here. It is now worn as a mark of honour and is being embraced as success lies just beyond failure.
Back in April 2011 I attended a session on youth entrepreneurship in Dublin Castle. Afterwards I shared some thoughts via email with one of the organisers on what needed to happen here to kick start entrepreneurship. Some of the suggestions were picked up while other ideas were repurposed, diluted or parked. Six plus years on it is painful to see the glacial pace of change. This period was a golden period for entrepreneurship and some incredible opportunities were missed as a result. Governments role is to provide the environment within which entrepreneurship will flourish. It is not to be the largest VC in Europe as some state agencies have been crowing about. Losing the Web Summit to Lisbon provided a much needed reality check to those agencies.
The transition to a world without work as we’ve know it has already begun and Ireland needs to prepare for its coming. There is nothing to be proud of 500k forced to emigrate since the beginning of the financial crisis and 700k of the 2.1m workforce earning less than e15k pa. The funding and subsidising of bullshit jobs needs to end. Spin on jobs and unemployment is not unique to Ireland. The same thing is happening in the US, UK and elsewhere. Misguided central bank policies of QE, ZIRP and NIRP has resulted in the hollowing out of the middle class globally over the last 8 years.
While I welcome the number of past and present academics, civil servants and politicians tuning into startups I do not welcome the baggage they bring with them. Given the number of quangos starting to take root cronyism, nepotism and jobs for the boys needs to be nipped in the bud. We spend the money here but get sub standard results. Every 20 years since our independence in 1916 Ireland has entered periods of group think. We saw it happen here in the 1930s, 50s, 70s and 90s. It is happening here again in the current decade. History repeats itself unless we learn from it. Its time for a changing of the guard. Ireland deserves better and will get better. Spin will no longer work.
Its telling that the 2 most recent high profile Irish exits were from a former butcher and reporter. Patrick Coulson wrote about why he and his brother could not start Stripe in Ireland. Innovation happens on the edge for a reason and it is not just something that is growable on 3rd level campuses. We have some incredible talent here which is raw but hungry. Its time to kick start things by providing a future for a generation who is not forgotten. This piece is going to upset those who subscribe to the wearing of the green jersey. The reality is that far too many people responsible for our current travails have hidden behind it over the years and continue to do so. Much as others have been allowed do so since the founding of our state. Something to reflect on as we mark our centenary.
