View from Mumbai's financial district
There are several “Indias” and making comparisons between China and India is a “futile parlour game”.
That was the message from Ireland’s ambassador to India, Ken Thompson, when he addressed a group of Irish business people who were in Mumbai last night for the Entrepreneur of the Year programme. (more…)
John Collins talks to Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland about state visits and Suzanne Lynch discusses Disney’s Dublin opening. John McManus finds out about DCU’s new enterprise advisory board.
John Collins talks women in business with Emer Jameson, yourlocal.ie and Nicola Byrne, 11890, IDA chief Barry O’Leary on attracting investment, Maura Quinn on training for directors, while Suzanne Lynch discusses Greencore’s failed merger with Northern Foods.
With crushing inevitablity, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has waved goodbye to Mary Coughlan and said a big hello to erstwhile Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe. After his swapsies with the Tánaiste, O’Keeffe is now the man to turn to if you’re a struggling business in need of a subsidy or two. Out of work and looking for some kind of re-training gig? No, that’s still Coughlan, as her department is renamed the Department of Education and Skills (though Fás’s employment services is under the Department of Social Protection), while O’Keeffe’s castle now goes by the moniker Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation.
The new department names, apart from representing structural changes, exemplify the normality that is now attached to Government guff about “innovation” and “skills”, while concrete concepts such as “science” and, um, “employment” fall further out of fashion in political circles. But if only semantics were all we had to worry about, right?
My one encounter with Batt O’Keeffe – at the Kenmare economic conference last October – suggests he’ll feel right at home in his new job. Social welfare spending must be reduced and public sector pay re-examined, he told the audience of economists, business representatives and Lenihan fans. Greater work flexibility would definitely be required and cross-departmental waste eliminated, he added. Some people will call this stuff “common sense” and that it may be; I call it “Ibec press release”.
O’Keeffe was not present in the Kenmare auditorium to hear UCC economist Declan Jordan lambast the Government for its Science, Technology and Innovation strategy, arguing all too easily that it was awash with “fuzzy concepts” and had little economic basis. As nice as it all sounded, there was no strong correlation between higher spending on R&D and higher economic growth, Jordan claimed.
When it was his turn to talk, O’Keeffe declared that the Government would be sticking to its “smart economy” theme. This was “not just about white coats and PhDs”, he assured, inadvertently implying that white coats and PhDs were vain fancies. But as for what “innovation” will turn out to mean in terms of his department’s policies and – critically – its handling of its own budget constraints, who knows?
The current recession is really engendering a feeling of 1980s deja vu; long dole queues, boarded-up shops, hundreds of people applying for 10s of jobs. Of course the summers were much better back then but at least the general levels of weath in the country are much higher now.
The 1980s sprung to mind again when this press release passed over my desk. Basically 40 unemployed people will get their fees paid to do a Bachelor of Business Studies through the distance learning programme and they will also keep their dole, sorry Jobseekers Allowance. Students signing on – it really is the 80s again.
Glibness aside, it does look like an ideal opportunity for the recently employed to re-engage with formal education and as business qualifications in this country go, you don’t get much better than UCD’s Quinn School of Business.
