Between the jigs and reels, profit won out By Michael Clifford

Saturday, September 17, 2011

EVEN little steps leave footprints.

Last April, the World Irish Dancing Championship was held in Ireland for the first time in 15 years. The championships attract 6,000 visitors and are estimated to pump €10m into the economy of the host city. Some might find it strange that the championships hadn’t been here in that length of time, but Irish dancing is a worldwide phenomenon.
The championship is, however, administered through an Irish-based company, CLRG, and is dominated by people of Irish origin. Whatever about the last 15 years, right now the Irish economy is in the doghouse. Events like the World Irish Dancing Championships provide a little injection, spreading a few euro around. In this scenario, one might think that efforts would be made by this fine example of Irish culture to throw its weight behind the Irish economy.
Not a bit of it. Last week, the championship’s governing council decided on the venues for the event for the next three years. The cities of Glasgow, London and Montreal are to benefit.

One of the key determinants in picking a venue — as set out in CLRG’s tender document — is how much money the city, or its tourism bodies, is willing to shovel the way of the championships. Quite obviously, the selected cities stumped up more than Dublin or any other Irish venue could offer. CLRG is a company with charitable status. It is not in the business of making a profit.

Recently, the multinational Talk Talk, which is pulling out of Waterford, has been in receipt of much criticism over its disregard for the local workforce. We have come to expect little more from multinationals, but is the bottom line the main thing for the purveyors of Irish culture, too?

A spokesman for CLRG points to the international composition of the governing board, and says that Irish residents don’t have a majority on it. So what? The recent documentary on TV3 covering last April’s event leaves one with the impression that the business is dominated by Irish accents. Yet no special pleading from within is made to help out the country that spawned the phenomenon.

The attitude of the dance body to this country’s economy is not unique. There exists at all levels of society practically no esprit de corps about the state of the country, and what small steps might be taken to tackle the malaise.

A few years ago, when the exchange rate with Sterling was favourable, the late Brian Lenihan was castigated for urging citizens to shop at home. The sentiment Lenihan conveyed was understandable, but hard-pressed householders are naturally going to look for the best value available. The same principle should not apply to bodies which allegedly claim to represent the best interests of the State, its culture, citizens or business.

Two years ago, in a blackly comic move, the Dundalk chamber of commerce issued a leaflet urging the townspeople to shop locally, rather than tearing across the border with their euro. The leaflet was not printed in the town, but instead across the border, where a cheaper deal was on offer. According to a local news report, the chamber only bothered to obtain a quote from one of the four local printers.

At government level, the State examination papers have been printed abroad every year since 2003. Last year, one of the main contracts went to a company in Hertford, England. Most of the €34m spent on scripts for the junior and leaving certificates goes abroad, and it’s not for security reasons.

Brian Hayes, then Fine Gael spokesman for public expenditure, labelled the award "an absolute scandal." Fine Gael is now in government. Will it do anything innovative to ensure that the Irish printing business — which has shed 7,000 jobs in the last decade — gets a better crack of the whip?

Don’t hold your breath. During the general election campaign last February, it emerged that the websites of the main political parties were hosted abroad. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, the Greens and Sinn Féin were all providing work for IT people outside the country, while claiming that the economy was top of their respective agendas. It’s not that the job couldn’t have been done in the country. The Socialist Party and a number of independents had websites that were hosted in Ireland.

In response to a media query at the time, a Fine Gael spokesman said the party was "not interested" in the story, as there were "very, very important issues facing the country at the moment." Like what? A jobs crisis, maybe.

Examples abound. Much of the hurling equipment used in the GAA is now manufactured in Pakistan, with some of the business migrating to even cheaper hubs in China. The GAA is also in a position to exercise leverage in printing associated with the games. There is no indication that any effort has been made to keep business at home. Neither has much energy been expended in attempts to innovate when domestic costs appear to be higher.

If bodies whose primary function is not the pursuit of profit are unwilling to put a shoulder to the national wheel, there is little hope that fully-fledged businesses will make any effort.

Next month, the second Global Irish Economic Forum will convene in Dublin. Bill Clinton, assorted millionaires, and a host of tax exiles will chew the fat and come up with a few ideas on how to get things moving again. Some of the ideas will inevitably be cute, but useless. One of two may eventually amount to more than a hill of beans.

But on the ground, small efforts could be made to get the pennies right, in the expectation that the pounds might follow. On a micro level, the harvest to be reaped from innovation can be observed in the town of Kanturk in north Cork.

A concentrated effort to get people to shop locally has seen the town’s economy buck the national trend. Twenty two new businesses have been started within the town’s environs in the last two years in the wake of a chamber of commerce initiative to encourage people to "try the town first" when shopping.

On the most basic level, there is no reason why other towns could not make serious efforts to go down the path that Kanturk has beaten. All it takes is plenty of energy and attempts to innovate. There is no guarantee of success, but so far there is precious little evidence that the experiment has been attempted to any great extent elsewhere.

Repeating this on a national level would not be easy. But it is the job of government, both national and local, and the wider community, to create an environment that will exert pressure on individuals and organisations to at least think locally or nationally before doing business.

The guaranteed Irish scheme that was undertaken more than 30 years ago met with considerable success at the time. Maybe it’s time to think hard about how to initiate something similar, while taking into account EU and competition law.

Surely it isn’t beyond the capabilities of all the big brains in the country to come up with something. Surely it’s time that minds were focused on the most immediate task at hand.