Shift Happens: Time for Ireland to move on
I used my thinking in this post as the basis for the presentation I gave to the Innovation Taskforce on Monday 14th last. Concurrently Cliff Taylor of the Sunday Business Post contacted me asking me to do a piece as a follow up to my participation in a breakfast panel briefing at the Irish Taxation Institute: a version of the post below appears here in the paper.
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In November 1956 Taoiseach John A. Costello, aided by his Finance Minister Gerard Sweetman and young Secretary of the Department of Finance TK Whitaker, introduced Export Profits Tax Relief as the forerunner of our low corporation tax regime. The EPTR allowed a 50% remission on profits earned from increased export sales. Then in 1958, the IDA was given authorisation under the new Fianna Fail led Government led by Taoiseach Eamon de Valera to encourage foreign direct investment. Manufactured exports, which had been stagnant, grew by 18% in 1957, doubling by 1960; and employment once again to grow from 1957.
Innovation Task Force – Fourth Plenary Meeting
Chồn con Tiger – Hanoi and Vietnam
Despite having been a frequent visitor to China and Japan, I had never been to Vietnam until this week when I had an opportunity to come here to Hanoi. I wrote about the “Tico Tiger” after my first visit in 2008 to Costa Rica. Perhaps we could call Vietnam the “chồn con tiger” (pronunciation: “t-schon kon tiger”), playfully meaning “cub tiger” and vaguely sounding like “celtic tiger”.
Innovation Task Force – Third Plenary meeting
We had our third plenary meeting in Government Buildings yesterday, chaired by Dermot McCarthy. I’ve previously posted on the first, second and consultation meetings. The members of the task force are listed here, and most of the public submissions to date are here. Read the rest of this entry »
Innovation Task Force – broadband infrastructure
We had our third plenary yesterday, hosted at Government Buildings by Dermot McCarthy.
The meeting started with a presentation by Peter O’Neill of the DCENR on the current status of broadband infrastructure in Ireland. Since I have had a personal interest in the broadband infrastructure policy over the last decade, I’ll summarise the broadband discussion from yesterday here, and post the full summary of yesterday’s meeting in a separate article. Read the rest of this entry »
Innovation Task Force – consultation meeting
An Irish Smart Economy: Aspiration or Reality ?
Engineers Ireland
Just a short reminder that I’m running a parallel blog to diary my work this year as President of Engineers Ireland – quite busy and an awful lot going on
Hope to put some more thoughts here in this blog when I eventually get a chance