Taoiseach Launches Framework For Sustainable Economic Renewal

In the week before Christmas, Taoiseach Brian Cowen launched the government's framework for economic renewal. Entitled "Building Ireland's Smart Economy : A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal", it sets out a number of priorities and actions that the Government will be taking in the short and medium term.

Key elements of the plan include

• stabilising public finances and improving competitiveness, supporting those who become unemployed, and supporting Irish business and multinational companies;
• investing heavily in research and development, incentivising multinational companies to locate more R&D capacity in Ireland, and ensure the commercialisation and retaining of ideas that flow from that investment;
• implementing a 'new green deal' to move us away from fossil fuel-based energy production through investment in renewable energy and to promote the green enterprise sector and the creation of 'green-collar' jobs;
• supporting high-value innovation of products and services that will create hundreds of thriving Irish companies and associated employment;
• developing first-class infrastructure that will improve quality of life and increase the competitiveness of Irish business.

The Taoiseach said that there are a number of internal and external factors conspiring to give us the biggest economic challenge we have faced in a generation;

"We will eventually come through this. But I don't want us to come through it, merely as a matter of surviving as best we can. I want us to come through it with a strengthened capacity to provide our citizens with enhanced opportunities and living standards.

"I am clear where I want us to be. When this is over, there will be a new economic order and I want Ireland to be positioned to take full advantage of the opportunities that will be presented."

The aim is that Ireland becomes the world's leading location for business innovation, a country where there will be a critical mass of companies - both Irish and international - at the forefront of innovation, creating the products and services of tomorrow and well paid quality employment.

The Framework is a combination of existing policies on which the Government will build and new actions that will drive the restructuring of the economy.  This combination is important because a principal objective is to reprioritise the business of Government and to re-focus resources in a manner that will hasten economic renewal.

A transformation of the Irish economy is necessary for sustained growth and increasing levels of future national welfare. Innovation is the key ingredient to ensure rising standards of living.

A key feature of the smart economy is building the innovation or 'ideas' component of the economy through the utilisation of the knowledge, skills and creativity of people, and their ability and effectiveness in translating ideas into valuable processes, products and services.

Mr Cowen also said that the successful implementation of this Framework cannot just be delivered by the policy measures and investments put in place by Government.