'Competitiveness is our only security' - council chairman

The Government needs a new partnership agreement which will help to address quality-of-life issues such as health and crime, the chairman of the National Competitiveness Council and The Irish Times said yesterday.

Mr Brian Patterson told the conference that the private sector also required another pay agreement, indirectly, if the "price was right". But a lack of enthusiasm for such an approach was being supported by an "unlikely coalition" of the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, and the economist, Mr Jim Power, he added.

During the debate about social partnership versus competitiveness, Mr Patterson reviewed Ireland's "golden age" and noted that his two sons, in their late 20s, did not remember a time when there was a recession. But competitiveness was now slipping, with Ireland having fallen from a ranking of fifth to seventh in the World Competitiveness Yearbook.

There had also been growth in unit labour costs and in inflation, and there were serious infrastructural problems. While innovation, science and technology were regarded as crucial, the Irish education system was ranked 16th of 20 among OECD member-states, and there had been an alarming drop in teenagers taking physical science courses.

Benchmarking was going to put a "big kick" into unit labour costs, and a shift in exchange rates could "spell real trouble", Mr Patterson said.

There was also a crisis in the public sector, which appeared to be averse to change, was riven with defensiveness and cynicism, and suffered from weak leadership - although there were "good pockets", he stressed. It also had very strong union power, he noted.

Partnership had been the key to past success, though it had its faults, he said, and there would be some pain involved in new negotiations.

The next government, however, would need a new partnership agreement when the current PPF expired, to give it time while it grappled with the need for sweeping reform.

It would also serve as a hook on which to deliver on quality of life issues of most concern to people, such as health, crime, public transport and roads. But he also stressed the importance of competitiveness - "competitiveness is our only security, and I want that written on my gravestone", he said.

Referring to the challenges for human resource management, Mr Patterson said that if the employer was going to have a choice of employees, it would have to address the issues of main concern to young professionals, including work/life balance and the issue of more women in management.

Human resource management had come a long way, and there was a new professionalism, but he questioned the "Faustian bargain" made by some human resource professionals which he had recently come across.

These professionals seemed to be more interested in "cosying up" to board rooms and the finances of companies than concentrating on their own area of management, he noted.

Referring to leadership, Mr Patterson said it was no longer "the middle-aged man on a white horse", but a personal journey for those involved, and one which offered both opportunity and responsibility.