A warning about the consequences for Ireland's future if a party, suspicious of multinational companies and opposed to economic growth, was included in the next government has been issued by Minister for Health Mary Harney.
Launching her election campaign for Dublin Mid West at the Clarion Hotel in Liffey Valley last night, Ms Harney warned about the dangers of a rainbow coalition and said new jobs and investment would not come to Ireland in the next five years if a party opposed to enterprise was part of a government.
"No Irish minister will succeed in that job of bringing new jobs and investment to Ireland in the next five years if the government back home is divided on enterprise policy, on tax policy, on motorways, on infrastructure; if the government has elements who are suspicious of multi-national corporations, and if the government does not put economic growth and prosperity as the number one priority."
The Minister said a problem facing the Republic now was that a failure to build infrastructure and to complete our motorway programme, as fast as possible, could cascade into a failure to attract new industry, failure to build up regional development and failure to start new businesses and grow new employment. "This, in turn, can lead to higher unemployment, less economic activity, less tax revenue, higher welfare costs and less money available for new health and education investment.
"Our economic success, like a wide, deep river, takes a long time to build up. A cascade of fail- ure, like a waterfall, can happen very quickly indeed and before you know it, it's happening and you can't reverse the flow."
Ms Harney said one of the dangers in the current prosperity was that it could breed complacency and result in people taking it for granted.
"We have not spent 20 years, and particularly the last 10, building an Ireland where leading world companies can compete and win globally with Irish people, only now to risk all that by inward-looking, divided policies and attitudes in government."
Ms Harney said when she went out as minister for enterprise, trade and employment, selling Ireland as the best place in Europe and the world for investment, she knew that the Irish people and the Irish government were 100 per cent behind her. That was why it would be so dangerous for the country if the government included people who were divided on economic strategy.
"To paraphrase Geoffrey Howe, it would be like being sent out as first batsman for your country, only to find the government had broken your bat, or to hurl for your county, only to find the team management had broken your hurley," she said.