Last week I was on TV3’s Ireland AM, on the couch with Jim Power (economist with Friends First).  The thrust of the session was where Ireland’s economy was now, and where it was going.  The interesting thing was that Jim Power’s somewhat negative attitude on-air was completely different from off-air.  Jim was realistic and balanced off air, but seemed to feel it was required that he should repeat the litany of errors and threats to the economy, ostensibly because he missed it first time around.  Jim is a famous “Bear”, where I’m a less-famous “Bull”!  But in short, we agreed that Ireland came out of recession Quarter 3 2009, that 2010 would be a tough year (though better than 2009), 2011 would be better again, and that by 2012 we’d be rocking!

It’s time to grow again.  When Jim and other Bears start spouting the whole mantra – Debt, GNP, unemployment et al, it’s time to switch over!  Blame is silly.  Ireland was caught in “the perfect storm”.  Not only did our property bubble burst, but we were caught in an unprecedented global recession.  Then our exports struggled against a devalued dollar and pound (this problem still remains and Ireland’s cost structure has had to come down to compensate).  All our mistakes were magnified…, but the world is moving forward again, the Irish economy is moving forward again, I’m moving forward again, and if people like Jim (sorry for the example, because he was a really decent man) don’t start moving forwards again, they will be left behind.  Put simply, we fell off a cliff, but some of us have started the long climb back to the top.

My key argument was this, the economy is growing again, unemployment has stabalised (432,000 on Live register July 2009.  423,000 on Live register December 2009).  Brightwater has suffered 7 quarters of shrinking sales from Q1 2008 to Q3 2009.  Q4 2009 our sales rose, and I expect that to continue.  Ireland’s exports are getting stronger, and every area that pulls out of recession has a knock-on effect on the next sector and the next.  I understand that property prices have stabilised.  I understand even car sales are improving… in short, people are beginning to look forward again.  My experience tells me that we’re in a race and those that set off hardest and fastest will eventually win the race.

No doubt the Bears will be blaming, warning and doom-saying for many years to come.  Certainly it is worth listening to their warnings because after every boom, there is always a bust, and one eye must always be kept on this fact.  We ignored the Bears before, to our cost.  However, it takes more courage to be positive than to be negative.  What we’ve recently found are individuals and companies just beginning to take the first tentative steps again.  Clients are planning for the next few years, and they’re planning to grow.  So let’s stop asking “when will Ireland get out of recession” because we’re already out.  Now let’s start planning for the future, because there’s a lot of work to do!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:00 am and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.