Public Enterprise a major supporter of technology area

NET RESULTS: "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology," the popular astronomer Carl Sagan once said.

Disturbingly true, and not just in a social or educational context. In this country, science and technology have become much of the bedrock of the national economy. Yet, very few within Government cast more than a disinterested glance in the direction of these fields. Fortunately, some have always got the bigger picture without necessarily needing focused science and tech backgrounds themselves.

They realised that scientific and technological innovation, and an effective business climate in which they can grow, is not a self-sustaining eco-dome that will hum along nicely with just the occasional tweak here or adjustment there. It's a complex infrastructure that needs careful and informed - and most of all, creative - tending.

Past governments, from the 1980s onwards, got this gradually, mostly right, through a mix of good will, good management by a tiny number of people, and good luck. This includes those in the 1980s who are now often criticised for the management of a national economy that was at the time part of global slump. People tend to credit the government in existence during times of prosperity with having brought the good times with them. But such fruits are the result of preceding years, even decades, of tough decision making.

Therefore, post-election, it is worth nodding in the direction of people of all party hues who made the hard calls on policy earlier on. The seeds of technology industry growth were planted well back in the 80s and 90s.

Listening to the PDs and Fianna Fáil recently, you'd have thought they did all that work in the past five years. They have indeed made many good moves in nurturing along technology industry growth. But credit for the current statistics - that the technology sector alone contributes some €31 billion to exports, or 16 per cent of the GDP - goes as much to those who tilled the much more unpromising ground of the past.

Still, Fianna Fáil has a minister who has worked tirelessly on behalf of the technology sector, one who deserves a special doffing of the hat in respect as she now steps off the ministerial stage: Ms Mary O'Rourke.

The fact that she is not more widely recognised for her contributions in this area - and they are enormously important -is perhaps due to the difficulty and predominance of the rest of her ministerial portfolio.

Most of the Department of Public Enterprise properties were in a continual state of chaos. Hardly a month has gone by without problems in Aer Lingus, CIÉ, Iarnrod Éireann, Aer Rianta. Then there was the disastrous-to-most-punters flotation of Eircom.

What a thankless and brutal ministry. As a consequence Ms O'Rourke has been a controversial figure, as people agreed or disagreed with the way these headaches were handled. And as with all politicians, she could be a lightening rod for public feeling, attracting strong feelings, both positive and negative.

Most people who actually met her found her very hard to dislike on a personal level. She has always been quick with a ready quip, often at her own expense, and inevitably has a group laughing before long. She's an easy conversationalist and is rarely short of an exuberant sense of fun. If you were ever in such an unfortunate position as to be condemned to a night out with the entire cabinet, believe me, she's the one you'd sit next to in the pub. You'd be guaranteed a good laugh and real opinions, not a manufactured personality spouting spin.

But a minister needs to be far more than entertaining to be effective. As Ms O'Rourke departs as Minister for Public Enterprise, it should be roundly acknowledged that she was by and large, an excellent minister on the tech portfolio.

This, I think, will be her legacy in the history books -- not the endless bickering and crises in the transport area, which were a far more tangible and noticeable set of issues for business and citizens. A minister less personally committed to the technology sector would have put tech, e-commerce and infrastructure on the back burner and fought the higher profile transport battles instead. But Ms O'Rourke threw great energy into trying to get things right on the complex, rarely sexy tech side as well.

She was aided in this by having a well-informed and dedicated civil servant with a strong interest in technology, Mr Brendan Tuohy, who is now secretary general of the Department of Public Enterprise (many say to technology's loss - when he was head of the Communications division within the department he had time to develop policy and plans which have won plaudits internationally, doing no small part to boost the Republic's position as a tech centre). But a wise civil servant is not enough. A sharp, powerful and committed minister is needed to drive policy decisions, especially at cabinet level.

Especially so when the policy itself is rather dry. One can't imagine cabinet ministers groaning in ecstasy at the though of a debate on digital signatures, methods of boosting fibreoptic capacity, or encryption protocols.

But Ms O'Rourke gamely produced legislation and policy in these areas - some, such as the State's E-Commerce Act, considered a model internationally - and rammed it through with relentless determination at a critical time in the State's economic development. Several government observers said they could not imagine another minister who could or would have done the same. Legislation and related infrastructure projects pushed through under her eye have been crucial to the State's ability to quickly gain a globally-acknowledged level of tech-sector competence. For this, she won plaudits from many key leaders in the US tech sector.

Of course, many elements of policy in this area moved, and continue to move, very slowly. And many interested parties feel aggrieved at the direction some policy has taken. But looked at in an international context, the Republic has virtually re-created its image in the past decade from that of a sleepy agricultural backwater full of quaint cottage industries and the occasional rock star, to a smart, snappy, front-running location for the global technology industry.

So hats off to outgoing Minister Ms O'Rourke, by any evaluation, a major figure in the building of a strong foundation that should anchor the State's continued growth as a significant technology economy.