Madam, - On the sad occasion of Joe Rea's death, I would like to put on record a special contribution he made to our economic and social advancement.
When the final draft of the NESC report Strategy for Development was approved by the council in October 1986, the IFA inserted a number of reservations. A few days later, Joe phoned me, the chairman of NESC, to say that, because of the efforts I made to obtain unanimity on the report and because such unanimity on such a ground-breaking report would help its adoption by the Government, he wished formally to withdraw the IFA reservations. The report was, therefore, published without those reservations.
This concern for what he saw as the national interest was also evident a year later when he signed, on behalf of the IFA, the Programme for Natural Recovery which inaugurated the era of social partnerships and which reflected so much of what the NESC strategy advocated.
I can also certify to the brilliance and conviction with which, in the programme negotiations, he advanced the interests of the farming community. - Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIG O hUIGINN, (former Secretary General, Department of the Taoiseach), Templeogue, Dublin 16.
Madam, - The Celtic Tiger has many begetters. I would like to add the name of the late Joe Rea to that list.
In the early 1980s the Irish economy was going down the tubes. The National Economic and Social Council (NESC) comprising the social partners - unions, employers, farmers (of which Joe was one representative), the government and some independent members (of which I was one, having been appointed by the Government on the nomination of the National Youth Council) - was trying to find a solution to the economic malaise.
The secretariat was producing more and more gloomy analyses of our position. The unions were pushing for pay increases to compensate for the rampant inflation, employers were pleading for higher profits, farmers were looking for higher agricultural prices and civil servants were pointing out that we had no money to pay for anything. NESC meetings were getting more and more pessimistic.
Towards the end of one such council meeting Joe lost his rag. "We must break out of the stockade," he said. We must forget sectional interests and think of the tens of thousands of young people leaving the land and our cities heading for the boats and planes to emigrate. We must think of Ireland and not our own sectional interests.
To my mind that single contribution was one of the keys to the change in approach that led to the publication of "Strategy for Development", NESC's seminal Report that underpinned much of the economic policy then pursued by successive governments with the support of the social partners which was the foundation for the Celtic Tiger economy of the 1990s.
Individuals can make a difference and Joe Rea was one who did. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL J.T. WEBB, Mount Salus, Dalkey, Co Dublin.