Opportunities:

Potential for renewables (wind and wave especially)
Places to plant trees (we're not overpopulated)
Agriculture: we still have a healthy ag sector and we can make it even better. In a recession, food doesn't go out of fashion
Young population; more science and IT grads per capita than the UK manages...we need to improve the education system in the direction of technology.
We need to support innovation better.
If done correctly, even the recession itself could be seen as an opportunity to produce a leaner, meaner, more energy efficient Ireland...
cheaper housing and lower oil imports would eventually help us, especially when trying to recruit good talent from abroad. Celtic Tiger prices were putting even homesick expats off.

Agree with your list expatgirl.

Ireland has some areas of expertise and experience in IT, pharmaceuticals, medical hardware, agribusiness. Building on these is an opportunity.

The opportunity of becoming energy self-sufficient is probably the single biggest opportunity we have. We need to learn from Gazprom. We should have a plan to become an exporter of energy to the UK.

Broadband connectivity is an enormous opportunity for Ireland in terms of overcoming our remoteness as an island.

Literacy, communications skills, poetry, literature are tremendous strengths.

Music and dance are strengths too.

We have a mild climate and generally good growing conditions. Basic quality timber grows faster here than anywhere in Europe.

We are small and flexible: there is great connectivity between people and ideas sweep the country in a few hours. We are able to have national conversations with each other and act on them in a way that bigger countries can't.

We have taken in a new generation of people from outside Ireland: a good number will leave again but we should try to keep all we can. They are all people with at least a sense of adventure and up for it, or they wouldn't have made it here in the first place.

Our language, and the possibility of using it, is an opportunity. It provides a unique way of seeing and expressing things.

We can slag people off better than anyone else in the world, and aren't bad at boasting either.

cactus flower wrote:

Broadband connectivity is an enormous opportunity for Ireland in terms of overcoming our remoteness as an island.

Literacy, communications skills, poetry, literature are tremendous strengths.

Music and dance are strengths too.

We are small and flexible: there is great connectivity between people and ideas sweep the country in a few hours. We are able to have national conversations with each other and act on them in a way that bigger countries can't.

We have taken in a new generation of people from outside Ireland: a good number will leave again but we should try to keep all we can. They are all people with at least a sense of adventure and up for it, or they wouldn't have made it here in the first place.

Our language, and the possibility of using it, is an opportunity. It provides a unique way of seeing and expressing things.

We can slag people off better than anyone else in the world, and aren't bad at boasting either.

I think these characteristics are strengths but I can't see how they can be used to take advantage of opportunities ...

Somehow I believe we could capitalise on how we like to talk, blab, gossip etc. I just don't know exactly how ...

How well do we argue when we are in the EU institutions ? We have a number of prominent politicians there and I wonder if we have powers to convince people to do stuff for us politically ? Could we develop powers of negotiation or some shite ?

It seems the economic collapse we're seeing could be fairly long-lived and my guess is the next wave of 'production' and 'consumption' will involve education and entertainment, without a doubt. If we get our energy supply as a species under control then I do feel we could be heading for a kind of Star Trek world where production will take less and less human effort to produce similar goods. If you look at the evolution of computers and how every two years you get twice as much for half the price then it only takes one smart crowd to offer super-competitive super-durable goods that last ages thereby whacking production even more (Kia with their 7 year warranty); the stage after that being cheap money to buy this stuff and then companies giving away computers with mobile phones and giving cars away with houses and so on as is happening.

Maybe the crash will end but I'm guessing it will because something very new will emerge. If it doesn't this time it will the next anyway because there's only so much we can consume, buy, contract, mine, extract before a saturation point is reached and we seem to be fairly close. It could be next time though but it WILL HAPPEN. Don't doubt it. More and more people appearing on the planet and more and better production methods for consumables albeit over scarce resources. If Peak Oil doesn't happen or can be dealt with by alternative means then we could be heading for a world where eduction and work will almost be equated in terms of activity. I don't know how it could be but I'm guessing we could print money for some things such as education and get away with it as long as there is a balance of production on the other side coming in.

It could be a world where education, entertainment, music, travel, spirituality, conversation etc. become as important and valued as some of the crap we value too much now. Some of these things we are most excellent at and often have a ready audience around the world when we open our gobs.

Very interesting post Auditor #9. I think I wandered from Opportunities to strengths. Should we move the last two posts?

The world seems to be littered with stuff at the moment that we can produce but not consume - people owning more than one house, multiple cars, wardrobes stuffed full of clothes - did you see last week a woman died in her home buried under masses of stuff she had been accumulating in an addictive kind of way. The car factory lots are full of cars that can't be shifted, Spain and Ireland are full of empty homes that no one can buy.

The invisible hand is failing disastrously and all the bailouts are geared to trying to get the free market going again in the same way as got us into this position in the first place. Perhaps we should be looking again at planning our economies far more. What was impossible in the USSR in the last century might be possible now we have computers, far more technology and management technique, and a globalised economy. It was always nuts that we had stockpiles of food while people were starving, but now the whole thing of consumer goods seems to have gone the same crazy way.

Of course the things we can't consume have always been more valuable than the things we can, that is not a modern thing. Whether it be precious metal, grand buildings or renaissance art.

cactus flower wrote:

Very interesting post Auditor #9. I think I wandered from Opportunities to strengths. Should we move the last two posts?

The world seems to be littered with stuff at the moment that we can produce but not consume - people owning more than one house, multiple cars, wardrobes stuffed full of clothes - did you see last week a woman died in her home buried under masses of stuff she had been accumulating in an addictive kind of way. The car factory lots are full of cars that can't be shifted, Spain and Ireland are full of empty homes that no one can buy.

The invisible hand is failing disastrously and all the bailouts are geared to trying to get the free market going again in the same way as got us into this position in the first place. Perhaps we should be looking again at planning our economies far more. What was impossible in the USSR in the last century might be possible now we have computers, far more technology and management technique, and a globalised economy. It was always nuts that we had stockpiles of food while people were starving, but now the whole thing of consumer goods seems to have gone the same crazy way.

No I don't think you should move them cactus because the Opportunities is going to be difficult to talk about and will get some teasing out I'd say.

You could be very right, we might end up looking a lot more seriously at planned economies now if we haven't already in a big way. There's even a film about Che Guevara out now - the director is probably capitalising on the present zeitgeist ...

johnfás wrote:

Of course the things we can't consume have always been more valuable than the things we can, that is not a modern thing. Whether it be precious metal, grand buildings or renaissance art.

You'd think it was otherwise though wouldn't you ? You said before you don't live near too many McMansions well take a trip down to Clare next time you're visiting the lass in Limerick - or just look around the countryside on your way there - why the hell do people need such big homes ? Fair play if they can heat them sustainably but to me it's showy nonsense, a lot of it. But I can understand too if people like their space I suppose. They like big engine sizes as well of course ...

A lot if not most of the best things in life are free yet we are often too afraid of those things.... Nature for example. We've plenty of nature and I think it could be an opportunity for us if a big enough mindset shifted in the right direction ... if people became discontented with modern life being rubbish and all and if tons of them got society fatigue or something and wanted to head out into wilderness.

We should try to cultivate more wilderness if that's not a paradox. We have a low population and land is cheap and we could do worse than create more National Park areas and create more wilderness. Maybe this big bang happened very much because people got saturated with civilisation.

I don't think the lack of McMansions is owing to a desire not to have them. It is merely a space thing. The 'prime' areas of Dublin tend to have mature development dating back, at the latest, to the 1960s. There tends not to be much room for expansion. Alot of people have fairly long, but not so wide, gardens which always makes largescale extension a bit difficult. We're a corner house so have the benefit of a very wide garden but no intention of extension - waste of dosh.

Extension of national parks is a great idea. National parks tend to make for more concerned planning, which is generally better planning. Proper national parks with trails, camping etc, are also great for tourism.

johnfás wrote:

Extension of national parks is a great idea. National parks tend to make for more concerned planning, which is generally better planning. Proper national parks with trails, camping etc, are also great for tourism.

Thanks.

I've often thought that there aren't enough different types of tours around - you know the ones you can go on around Dublin and in the Midleton Distillery and Bunratty Castle etc. There is no reason why there shouldn't be economic tours either as there is a growing demand for trainspotting knowledge about excruciating detail with regards to economic data of even a household nature.

Irish people don't open up enough but I think we could capitalise on it if we did open up, you know. There was a psychological programme on RTE a while back with David Coleman instructing parents how to not beat their children to death when they were 'bold' but instead to take a civilised approach etc. and it was a very interesting programme.

Could this extend to people's economic lives in real life ? A bus tour around the estates ? Or even a tour around the place showing how it all fits in governmentally and resource-wise - farming, energy, tourism etc. etc. etc.

We have tons of houses now that are going for a song the government probably will end up owning half of them by the end of the Spring when BOI and AIB end up looking into the toilet too.

That should solve the housing shortage we have in Ireland - give needy people from Moyross, South Hill and elsewhere some decent accomodation that will boost their dignity and pride in themselves and in their immediate new social circle that they will have been relocated to.

I don't share your worries about AIB and BOI, Auditor. I think they'll live to fight another day.

A decision is going to have to be made about these empty houses though. We don't have the climate to leave them empty without heating. Imagine what damage the current weather is doing in terms of damp to buildings which have not yet been properly insulated, roofed, windowed or heated. I think alot of empty commercial units could be converted into facilities serving the public good.

johnfás wrote:

I don't share your worries about AIB and BOI, Auditor. I think they'll live to fight another day.

A decision is going to have to be made about these empty houses though. We don't have the climate to leave them empty without heating. Imagine what damage the current weather is doing in terms of damp to buildings which have not yet been properly insulated, roofed, windowed or heated. I think alot of empty commercial units could be converted into facilities serving the public good.

Ugh ... so after a few months of a cold yet humid winter we get ...





And that's just 'damp' - check out 'mold' here
http://images.google.ie/images?um=1&hl=en&q=mold&btnG=Search+Images

We could turn them all into social housing but is there a law against us having too much - or could we do a 'rent to buy' scheme? Or what if the government grabs them all, rents to buy them to 'Ninjas' (No Income No Job, no Assets) at a higher interest rate but longer return ? These new nationalised mortgages could be prepared into a special high-yielding account and floated on the investment market like our bonds which could bring in come capital to get the debt collectors off our backs ?

So long as they don't put people who can't afford a car into places with no jobs and no facilities and no bus services...like they did in the 80s.

There needs to be a big job done checking over these empty homes and finding a good use for them. The law might need to be changed to allow Government to CPO them easily - there's law on derelict sites, but it excludes "habitable houses". But I suppose if we own the banks, we'll own most of them anyway

There's an awful lot of this around south Dublin - hardly habitable.

Jesus, I'm getting an asthma attack just looking at those pictures Audi posted. Older houses have no DPC or DPM or insulation. A disaster really..

johnfás wrote:

There's an awful lot of this around south Dublin - hardly habitable.

If that's Sandyford, there's a second problem there. There's no sewage capacity for it.

'tis indeed Sandyford... going to look like a building site for a generation up there I would say. Quite who would really want to live on the edge of a business park I don't know. However, it does have good infrastructure in terms of the M50 nearby and the Luas running right past so I suppose it will be better placed than alot if things do improve a bit.

The opportunity is there to work together to salvage the best we can out of the banks, and to try to stay out of the hands of the IMF. We have a lot of bright, knowledgeable economists and able politicians. Plenty of them are offering their advice, as they best see it. The opportunity is there to make informed decisions "in the common good".

cactus flower wrote:

The opportunity is there to work together to salvage the best we can out of the banks, and to try to stay out of the hands of the IMF. We have a lot of bright, knowledgeable economists and able politicians. Plenty of them are offering their advice, as they best see it. The opportunity is there to make informed decisions "in the common good".

Yes it's an odd one but there's no denying we can pick some knowledge and experience from the bones of this and perhaps create a few experts on such financial matters as Nationalising banks.

Interestingly yesterday in the Dáil, Seanad and on Prime Time, Lenihan spoke about how no-one put a nationalisation model together just in case it would happen ... is that something we should give out as assignments in the BComm courses in our universities ? Sinn Fein were on about it in the last election as a plank of their policy - nationalising banks - but they were lampooned more or less. The irony of it if SF had some structures thought-up and our Govt. had to go to them.

Lenihan spoke about how the Danish wanted to borrow our bank Guarantee as a template and they did but they modified it to include a nationalisation option. They didn't give it back to us though.

Knowledge is powerful but you have to get your information in order first. That's what's lacking here and maybe we'll see that as an opportunity to get something more reliable in terms of information.

If you think nationalising banks now is bad, nationalising banks when each share cost 20 euro would have been even worse because we would have had to pay for an overvalued product and we would still be dealing with this problem right now.

johnfás wrote:

If you think nationalising banks now is bad, nationalising banks when each share cost 20 euro would have been even worse because we would have had to pay for an overvalued product and we would still be dealing with this problem right now.

See ? You're young, you've got plenty grey matter in your head, you're the one who will be leading this country out of the grimy tunnel in 2018.

Opportunities are hard to write down, because if you have them you're acting on them yourself potentially. If you have the time there's a radio programme on PK on potential irish entrpreneurial ideas on Friday morning which might give us a picture of what the next ten years could look like.

We can only start from where we are, if we are looking for opportunities, and where we might want to get to from here.

I think one opportunity is to insist on a fast, cost effective and thorough overhaul of our regulation systems and legislation. It is one thing that could be done that would not cost much and would help to restore some confidence. We have existing legislation on the books that can be used to.

We have plenty of people who know about property so a crack team could be reevaluating the landbanks and properties that are collateral for any non-performing loans and coming up with the best way of getting some good out of them, either in terms of income or use.

Overhaul of legislation isn't actually that cheap. There is an ongoing process to overhaul the Companies Acts... it must have cost millions upon millions at this stage. Similarly with the overhaul of legislation in relation to land law. That said, better legislation is a good framework on which to build future development so it is not money squandered.

johnfás wrote:

Overhaul of legislation isn't actually that cheap. There is an ongoing process to overhaul the Companies Acts... it must have cost millions upon millions at this stage. Similarly with the overhaul of legislation in relation to land law. That said, better legislation is a good framework on which to build future development so it is not money squandered.

Why is it so expensive? Is it all being farmed out to consultancy? Government should have the in house expertise to work on this at civil service wages. It goes through plenty of consultation before it is enacted, and that shouldn't be costly either.

Pretty much. We establish legal review groups which are full of barristers, legal academics etc and they are all paid. Then with something like Company Law what they are looking to do is come up with a single Companies Act. At the moment Company Law is governed by 12 primary Acts, the Common Law and a load of Secondary Legislation. To consolidate all that into one code is a huge effort which you have to pay qualified legal researchers to do.

It should be cheaper, but currently it isn't.

Company Law Review Group:
(These guys would all be getting paid, presumably)

onall O’Halloran Conall is a partner in KPMG where he is partner in charge of Professional Standards and Risk Management. He chairs the CCAB-I Business Law Committee and is a member of the Quality Assurance Main Committee of the ICAI. Conall is a fellow of the Insitute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and is originally an Engineering graduate from UCC. He was previously a partner with Arthur Andersen.

Daryl Byrne Daryl Byrne is Head of Corporate Listing and Policy at the Irish Stock Exchange. He recently participated on the Committee of European Securities Regulators in the development of the detailed requirements under the Prospectus Directive and Transparency Directive, and currently chairs the Prospectus task force of the Federation of European Stock Exchanges. Daryl is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland and holds a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Trinity College Dublin and NASD Series 7 qualification.

Ian Drennan Ian is Chief Executive of the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority (IAASA). He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and an Associate of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland. Prior to taking up his current position, he headed the Compliance Function at the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. He has previously held positions with the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Department of Finance and a number of Dublin accountancy practices.

Jon Rock Jon Rock, F.C.I.S. has been a Director and Company Secretary of ICC Information Limited since 1991. Prior to joining ICC he spent many years in the Company Secretarial Division of Deloitte & Touche. He is a Fellow and past-President of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA) – Irish Region. He remains an active member of Irish Region Council of the ICSA. He also holds a Diploma in Legal Studies and is a former Chairman of the Irish Registrars’ Group.

Jonathan Buttimore Jonathan Buttimore B.C.L, LL.M. (Eur. Law) B.L. represents the Office of the Attorney General. He has extensive practical and academic experience of both domestic and international company law, having written numerous legal articles as well as two textbooks and represented Ireland on the UNCITRAL Working Group on Insolvency.

Lyndon MacCann S.C. Representative of the Bar Council.

Máire O’Connor Máire is a partner at McCann Fitzgerald and is Chairman of the Taoiseach’s IFSC Funds Group. She worked for a number of years in the Company Law Division of the Department of Industry and Commerce, where she was responsible for the preparation of a large amount of legislation and for the servicing and implementation in Ireland of a number of EU Company Law Directives, including the UCITS Directive.

Marie Daly Marie Daly qualified as a solicitor in 1987. She is Head of Legal and Regulatory Affairs with IBEC and is also a member of the Pensions Board, IAASA (Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority), and the High Level Group on Business Regulation.

Mark Pery-Knox-Gore Mark Pery-Knox-Gore is a partner in the Corporate and Commercial Department of Beauchamps. He is a member of the Business Law Committee of the Law Society of Ireland and is the representative of the Law Society on CROLink. He was appointed to the CLRG as the Law Society's nominee in May 2007.

Martin Moloney Martin Moloney is head of the Markets Supervision Department of the Financial Regulator and is also Secretary to the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority. He previously headed up the Legal and Finance department of the Financial Regulator and before that held positions in the Competition Authoriy, the Department of Finance, the Deparment of Justice, Bank of Ireland and Barclays Bank. He holds a Doctorate in Philosophy, a Masters degree in Economic Policy Analysis, is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and has also completed the Associateship of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.

Michael Halpenny SIPTU National Industrial Secretary, Michael is chair of the Unions Rules Revision Committee (Governance) and also a member of the ICTU Union Recognition sub-committee. A graduate of NUI, TCD and the Kings Inn he is an Associate-Lecturer in Employment Law and in Industrial Relations of the National College of Ireland.

Mike Percival Mike Percival is the Wholesale Banking and Legal Executive at the Irish Banking Federation. Originally from New Zealand, where he developed a background in law and economics, he moved to IBF from the Commission for Energy Regulation.

Muriel Hinch represents the Revenue Commissioners and was a member of the Working Group on Compliance and Enforcement.

Noel Rubotham Noel Rubotham joined the High Court as a court officer in 1975, serving as Official Assignee in Bankruptcy from 1989 until 1999, and thereafter as Registrar of Wards of Court, before his appointment as Director of Reform and Development in the Courts Service in March, 2002. He is a graduate of the Law School, Trinity College Dublin, and was called to the Bar in 1985.

Nora Rice is a solicitor, and is the Legal Adviser to the Companies Registration Office. She was a member of the Working Group on Company Law Compliance and Enforcement in 1998 and became a member of the CLRG in 2000.

Paul Appleby Paul Appleby is the Director of Corporate Enforcement and is responsible for encouraging compliance with and enforcing the requirements of the Companies Acts. Further information on his Office's role can be obtained from www.odce.ie.

Paul Egan Paul Egan, Solicitor, admitted in Ireland and England & Wales. Chairman of the Corporate Department, Mason Hayes Curran, Dublin. 2000-2005, nominee of the Law Society of Ireland. Appointed by Michael Ahern, Minister for Trade and Commerce, January 2007.

Paul Farrell Joined the civil service in 1972. He was manager of the Companies Registration Office from 1985 to 1993. He served as industry attaché to the European Union from 1993 to 1997. He was appointed registrar of companies in 1997.

Ralph MacDarby Lawyer. Memberships: Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators; 1973 (Fellow 1997), Barrister-at-Law; 1976, Associate Institute of Taxation in Ireland; 1978, Associate Institute of Management Accountants; 1978, Fellow Irish Institute of Secretaries and Administrators; 1979, Fellow Institute of Directors; 1981, Notary Public; 1983, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; 1987, Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; 1994. Appointments: Managing Director of Secretarial Trust Company; 1973, Partner of Haughey Boland & Co.; 1980, President of IISA; 1982-1984, President of Institute of Directors; 1989-1991, National Company Secretarial and Legal Partner of Deloitte & Touche, 1991 to 2006 (Retired). He was appointed to the CLRG as nominee of the Institute of Directors.

Tanya Holly Tanya Holly, B.C.L., LL.M (European Law), solicitor is the legal adviser in company law to the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment. Prior to joining the Department in 2002, she spent 6 years in private practice in Dublin and London working in the company law and securities law area specialising in advising on company flotations, fundraisings, takeovers and advising listed companies and state companies on corporate governance matters generally.

Vincent Madigan Principal Officer, Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Worked in Company Law section since 1987.

William Johnston Partner and head of banking law in Arthur Cox, member of the 1994 Company Law Review Group, author of Banking and Security Law in Ireland (Butterworths 1998), Chairman of the Business Law Committee of the Law Society of Ireland.