Micheál Martin, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment

In the week that US mobile phone giant Motorola effectively announced the closure of its software centre in Cork, with the loss of 350 jobs,  Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin received a copy of the National Competitiveness Council's report Benchmarking Ireland’s Performance.

The NCC  report noted that Ireland’s economic performance remains strong but warned that the underlying source of this growth has shifted from exports towards construction activity and consumer demand. It said that the current account with the rest of the world has gone into deficit and that in a small regional economy like Ireland, economic prosperity ultimately depends on our ability to sell goods and services abroad. The report said that worryingly, our productivity growth rates, which were among the highest in the OECD, have slowed, while growth in domestic demand is being financed by high levels of personal borrowing.

The report was published on Wednesday this week and a day later, Micheál Martin had to contend with the second announcement by a US multinational in his political constituency, that shows the risks faced by an economy that is built on reliance on foreign firms that were responsible for 92% of our exports in 2006 coupled with a construction sector that accounts for 23% of GDP compared to a 12% EU average.

On Thursday, the world's top pharmaceutical firm Pfizer announced that following a review of its Irish operations, it is to close one of its manufacturing units at Ringaskiddy, County Cork and sell its manufacturing units at Little Island and Loughbeg, County Cork with 545 jobs affected.

On Friday, February 9th, Irish tech firm Cognotec said that it is reviewing its Dublin operation; Franco-American tech firm Alcatel-Lucent announced planned job cuts of 12,500 that may impact 290 Irish jobs;  Canadian firm Nortel announced planned job cuts of 2,900 - Nortel has 975 Irish staff in Dublin, Belfast and Galway; Youghal, County Cork manufacturing company Elba announced the closure of its Irish operation.

There are further job losses expected in the multinational sector, including at the Xerox call centre in West Dublin, where there are about 1,000 employed.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin is in his element making jobs announcements and he seldom misses the opportunity to refer to "high quality" or "high calibre jobs." Martin's Department issues many press statements apart from any comment on the monthly redundancy figures.

The number of Irish job losses reported to the Redundancy Unit at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in January was 2,807 compared with 2,314 in January 2006.

The foregoing presents a dismal enough picture, but the most worrying news is that Xsil, the fastest growing Irish tech company of the present decade, is considering moving its activities overseas including its R&D activities. Xsil won the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 award in 2006.

Martin says Ireland will become a world class knowledge economy in six years but he avoids specifics and and it raises the question as to how much is aspiration and if the Minister really knows himself?

Last month, Finfacts reported that Venture Capital investment in Irish business amounted to 2.4% of the €8 billion Irish investors ploughed into overseas commercial property, in 2006.

In a radio interview, Martin said that he's confident that new jobs in the pipeline will provide opportunities for those who will lose jobs and Martin's colleague Junior Minister Michael Ahern, who represents East Cork, said in the Dáil that US biotechnology company "Amgen recently announced 1,100 new jobs at its facility at Carrigtowhill," in his constituency.

Amgen's announcement was made on January 23, 2006.

There is no fear that any Minister would dampen down expectations about spending or even appear anything but optimistic about the economic outlook.

Aer Lingus workers who own their company and their trade unions dominate the media headlines and this week public health workers joined the fray. If they haven't shares, all of them have gold plated pensions - that would require funding of 28% of salary for 40 years  in the private sector to reach comparability - as have the Ministers who received two benchmarking payments. As with the rest of the public service, their targets were also illusory.

There are 900,000  workers in the private sector without occupational pensions or job security.

There's rakes of money in the system at present and it only cost a prudent €340,000 for the launch of the good news National Development Plan.

It's still partytime and it's too late at this stage to worry about hangovers. So to hell with inconvenient truths!! 

Goodbody Stockbrokers - - Property-related taxes have been an especially important driver of tax revenues. While stamp duty is most visible in this regard, the biggest revenue gatherer is, in fact, VAT receipts from residential construction, which accounts for c.8% of total revenue. Goodbody estimates that property-related taxes have accounted for up to a third of the increase in the total tax take over the past two years. Property-related taxes now account for at least 17% of total revenues, up from 4% ten years ago. As the property market slows, the scope for further upside revenue surprises is limited.