Comment: The recent launch of the Enterprise Action Plan by Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Micheál Martin fudged a number of the main recommendations of the original report, while doing little to reduce our unhealthy dependence on overseas investment.

With very few specific deliverables in the plan, it's hard to see how we will effectively measure the outcomes. Surely anyone involved in business in this day and age realises that what doesn't get measured doesn't get done.

Leaving that aside, the original report, which I was involved with in a small way, has missed out on one vital area - namely, giving due recognition and importance to our natural Irish industries, eg agriculture, tourism and food production.

If you strip out our exports from foreign companies with operations in Ireland, we wouldn't have had the Celtic Tiger.

Indigenous Irish exports have barely grown at all in the last 10 years.

While overall exports are dominated by computer equipment and chemicals, indigenous exports are dominated by food and drink, accounting for more than 50 per cent.

However, Science Foundation Ireland, whose remit covers the food and drink sector, was in fact only allocated 4 per cent of State funding for R&D into the food industry.

While no one wants to take away from the success that we have enjoyed through our ability to attract large-scale multinationals to Ireland, we are nonetheless dangerously exposed to events that we cannot control.

Ireland is the most globalised economy in the world, and, unfortunately, this position makes us susceptible to a downturn.

In the height of the good times, it seems that we forget that we are at a particular stage in the economic cycle and that it will change.

We need to even things up, not by taking away from our foreign direct investment strategy, or indeed from our efforts to create clones of the major foreign industries based in Ireland.

Instead, in parallel, we need to refocus on our natural industries, on agriculture, tourism and food production, so that they can become competitive and provide a level of job security in a highly volatile world.

The problem with our natural industries is that they don't compete well enough.

As with our high-tech strategy, jobs in this sector are liable to go to the countries that can produce food and provide tourism for the mass market at the lowest cost.

But we could tap into a market opportunity that is perfect for Ireland, one that is waiting to be exploited.

All over the developed world - especially in Europe - consumers are becoming more health conscious.

There is a growing number of people at the top end of the market who want to eat food that they think is good for them, like organically grown meat and vegetables.

The current supply of these products is fragmented and not identified with a particular country, and distribution is controlled by the major European supermarket chains.

Ireland, with its green image, low population density and location at the edge of one of the richest markets in the world, is ideally placed to capitalise on this opportunity and serve much of this business.

Ireland could become the country identified with these products. A new, premium-quality Irish brand could be created to market and sell this farm produce in Europe. An innovative approach to distribution could keep the products away from the control of the supermarket chains to maintain a premium price.

This green food image, with its associated environmentally friendly policies, could also feed into our tourism industry.

It could provide opportunities to create holiday packages tailored specifically for stressed, time-poor but cash-rich European families, which would differentiate Irish tourism from that of other countries.

I am suggesting a new strategy to take Ireland slowly away from its traditional, commodity-based agriculture and food processing to a new model based on small-scale, specialised farming and food production.

This sustainable agricultural model would preserve the best elements of our environment and landscape, further enhancing the country's tourism potential as the green, healthy oasis of Europe.

As a result, economic development would be more evenly spread throughout the country.

Brody Sweeney is founder of O'Briens Irish Sandwiches and is seeking the Dáil nomination as a Fine Gael candidate for Dublin North East.