By Ed Forry
BIR Publisher
Ireland held a national election last March that changed the face of government. Amidst every indication that the boom years of the “Celtic Tiger” had long since passed, the worldwide economic meltdown struck Ireland with catastrophic consequences.

High unemployment, the failures of Irish bank and other industries, and the collapse in the housing values saw the voters turn out the Fianna Fail party, in power since 1987, in favor of a new government. Fine Gaél’s Enda Kenny was named Taoiseach (prime minister), and his party formed a governing coalition with the Labour Party.
Within days, Kenny visited Washington for a traditional St. Patrick’s Day reception at the White House. “I know now that miracles do happen, Kenny told President Obama. “The fountain is green and I’ve arrived in the East Room here in the White House. One week in office: enough to build the world – that’s what the creator had. If we keep this up, Ireland will be great again inside a very short time.”
Now almost a full year in office, an Taoiseach visited Boston in mid-February, completing a whirlwind tour that included a speech at the Harvard Kennedy School, a reception hosted by Irish Network/Boston, a private American Ireland Fund dinner with 30 Boston business leaders, a breakfast sponsored by the Irish American Partnership, and a business luncheon at the John F Kennedy Library.
For all that, Kenny found time to sit down with the BIR and talk about his first year in office: “We inherited an unprecedented situation in Ireland; we had to face down an enormous challenge economically, rebuild the reputation of the country, and set out in a sense of trust with the people, and say look, ‘This is the plan, this is what we are going to do, here's how we're going to get out of this situation. Nobody else is going to get us out of this except ourselves.’ ”
Speaking in hushed, determined tones, he carried on with his theme: “When you look at the characteristics of the Irish personality, we have dealt with adversity before in the past. In the 80's for instance, interest rates were 20 percent, inflation was 16 or 17 percent, and we had two thirds of the workforce working that we have now. So what we want to do is get back to where we were in the late 90's, where Ireland was cost competitive, had a very strong export manufacturing output, and where you were still attracting a lot of internal investment from abroad.
“We have all those characteristics, [we just have] to tie them together. The fundamental challenge is that we are spending 18 billion [euros] more than we're taking in. That means you have to downsize the cost of running the government, downsize the public sector, and provide your service more efficiently with less people.
“It also means that you have to concentrate on providing a stimulus for the economy so that it can expand, because while you are cutting back, you're never going to get out of the economic situation that we're in. Ireland is one of 27 countries in the European Union, and one of 17 in the euro zone where we have to deal with the fact that you need fiscal discipline, you need budgetary oversight, and the fact that if you sign on for conditions, you better be prepared to adhere to them. So all those things are in the mix here.
“In the last ten months we have rebuilt the reputation of the country, and business now knows that we're not messing around in Ireland. There's clarity, there's decisiveness, there's definition, there's a horizon. We're not moving off our 12 1/2 percent corporation tax rate; our technology, our talent pool and our track record are quite unique, in the sense that there's opportunity for any potential investor.
“We offer two other things: one of them is political stability – the two parties in government have a big majority and we're working on implementing our own program with the people; the second is the opportunity for economic growth, and that means the number of tech companies, banking companies, the new companies off the internet – they're all in Ireland and they're doing well in Ireland because they recognize the creativity and the imagination of our young people, who are actually creating the new future. In ten years’ time, much of that is going to come out of the ingenuity of the Irish workforces coming down the line.
“Ireland borrowed over 63 billion [euros] to re-capitalize our banks at high interest rates,” Kenny said, adding that his government negotiated a lower rate that “saved the Irish taxpayer over 10 billion (euros).” As a result of the economic meltdown, Ireland has been under the direct economic rule of out-of-the-country financial institutions, and Kenny said his government is working to find “flexibilities” that were not available in the early stage of the Euro zone struggles. He added that those institutions are now reviewing possible ways to adjust the repayment plan.
“We're going to pay our debts, but we want a facility to have a lower interest rate over a longer period,” Kenny said. “We will pay it in full and keep our reputation and our status and our credibility intact.”