Commenting on Finance Minister Brian Lenihan’s much-discussed pledge to deliver cuts of €4bn in the Budget, Mr O’Leary said: “I’ve been asked if I were Minister for Finance, what I would do to reduce costs by €4bn. I wouldn’t reduce them by €4bn. I’d reduce them by €20bn in one year. I would eliminate 20 per cent of the civil service by simple means of requiring them all to work a minimum of 40 hours a week from Monday to Friday, and take 20 days’ holidays a year like everybody else in the bloody real world. And if you don’t like it, leave.”
Precisely how will that save €20bn? Even if they were to walk?
Referring to the obstacles his own company faces in doing business in Ireland, the Ryanair boss added: “What mystifies me is the Government falls all over itself trying to attract the world’s biggest companies to invest in this country. You have the world’s biggest airline resident in this country, willing to invest in this country in an industry which, despite the recession, you can turn on growth straightaway: tourism, hotels, bars, restaurants, the works. We’ve been doing business here since 1986 and yet the Government has followed only two policies. One: pissing us off; and two: promoting and protecting what is clearly an incompetent monopoly at Dublin Airport.”
But, to quote his own words… if you don’t like it, leave. Curiously though, Ryanair hasn’t.
And what of entrepreneurial wisdom on these matters?
Millionaire founder of Baltimore Technologies and former FAI chief executive Fran Rooney for his part believes that entrepreneurs will be the ones to lead Ireland out of the recession, with manufactured export-led growth being the key driver.
“Private enterprise is going to drive us out of this recession. How are we going to be successful driving this forward? The most essential statistic will be the increase in exports in the next number of years. We’ve got to create an environment where we have manufactured exports.
“That can only be created by entrepreneurs.
Hmmm… to a point, to a point. Although knowing what I do about the time from start up to successful profit making and the far from great record of entrepreneurship in this state…well… hmmm.
He continues:
“Where the Government can help is in providing the stimulus for that. There’s no point in creating jobs where we’re just moving the money around. We’ve got to bring money in from overseas either through investment to create exports, or through exports themselves. Without that, there isn’t going to be an improvement in this economy. We’ll just be borrowing, taking money in from banks that has to be repaid,” he said.
Mr Rooney says the Government must introduce imaginative policies to encourage people as the recession bites more heavily.
“We have a lot of people unemployed, and we’re paying for those people to be unemployed, essentially. One very simple stimulus would be to pay companies to take them on board. We’d get two things out of that. We would take people off the live register and we’d also be putting them back into employment which will help to stimulate the economy,” he said.
Ermmm… and who will pay for this given that ‘private enterprise will drive us out of this recession’ and recovery ‘can only be created by entrepreneurs’?
“Another great stimulus would be to match investment by private individuals”
By who again?
“There was a lot of money spent on land.
“Now where did that money go? Unless it was spent again on other development land or outside the country, it’s still in the country sitting in people’s bank accounts.
“You’re talking about a very aggressively sexed-up business expansion plan over one or two years where you’re going to get a return of ‘x’ percent that will be matched by the Government or assisted by them.
Ah…
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