Years of seemingly effortless employment growth has lulled the Government into complacency about Irish economic performance, and the hard lessons of the 1980s about what it takes to be a success in a small, open economy have been forgotten, according to Fine Gael.
In a pre-Budget perspective published yesterday, Fine Gael spokesman on finance Richard Bruton said the Government has entirely insulated itself from tough realities and allowed the tight disciplines that applied to public spending in leaner times to become flabby.
Mr Bruton said the Irish economy is not invincible, and it was not good that the Government now relied on the property sector for a quarter of all taxes collected by the State, and that productivity growth has slumped to its lowest level in 20 years.
Publicly controlled prices in Ireland are increasing by two-and-a-half times those of our EU counterparts, Mr Bruton added.
"Economic realities will break through it we do not recognise the challenges and prepare to meet them. We cannot sustain prosperity in the long term on the basis of a construction boom and reliance on exports of foreign-owned companies. Excessive dependence on both represents a significant vulnerability."
He said our competitiveness has slipped back seriously and markets are being progressively lost. Employment in trading sectors has taken a sharp dive, he said.
To reverse slippage in key areas of economic performance, Fine Gael says in government it would build a long-term economic strategy around the central aim of raising productivity through the economy. Strategic planning needs to become the central preoccupation of government, Mr Bruton added.
He said the Government must not run its fiscal strategy to match the electoral cycle, fuelling a boom for short-term political advantage "It must not run or regulate sectors in such as way that they add cost burdens to business and families." The Government must be tough on the accountability of Ministers and through them demand performance at every level, he added.