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Originally Posted by CJH The story is an abridged version of an opinion piece in today's Times. It is quite strange to read a leading Tory praising Ireland, but perhaps it should be a reminder to those of us with nationalist leanings that it's only a relatively small minority of the English right-wing these days who are anti-Irish.
Also, I don't have a link, but I would suggest that people read Myers today in the Irish Times; it's one of his finest |
Interesting,
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First, Ireland’s education system is world-class. On various different rankings it is placed either third or fourth in the world. By contrast, Britain is ranked 33rd and our poor education performance is repeatedly identified by organisations such as the OECD as our greatest weakness.
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Would posters say this is true? We all know it is true is that the Irish are more intelligent than they have been given credit for historically; but is the education system 'world class' and is it so much better than Britain's? Not complaining, in fact, great although its not good news for the Future Taoiseachs of this board.
(Someone is bound to point out, 'Surely all education systems are world-class. Where else is there?')
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Secondly, the Irish understand that staying ahead in innovation requires world class research and development.
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That surely is a function of the third point, which is
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Thirdly, in a world where cheap, rapid communication means that investment decisions are made on a global basis, capital will go wherever investment is most attractive. Ireland’s business tax rates are only 12.5 per cent, while Britain's are becoming among the highest in the developed world.
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Now we're getting to it! Money goes to money. As we have seen recently with job losses in Meath and elswhere, business will go where it makes the most profit, pure and simple.
Britain benefits from higher corporation tax; Ireland from lower. Which is better, given Britain has a much bigger internal market?
I suggest that more and more businesses will be shifting to cheaper countries very shortly; on the back of massive subsidies from Europe and low corporate taxation we've had a very good blip, thank you.
23rd February 2006
Tories: Ireland shining example of economic policy making 
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