What once looked doubtful now appears done: Ireland’s turnaround from agrarian economic sick man to tech-savvy tiger.
And as Irish President Mary McAleese tours America – she dined with Gov. Bill Owens on Thursday night – the benefits of Ireland’s education gambit gleam.
Owens beamed at Ireland’s success.
Instead of courting outside companies to lure investment, Ireland’s well-schooled workers now create their own companies capable of competing worldwide. Today, more than 55,000 Americans work for Irish companies. Some in the software field, such as DigiSoft, have opened offices in Colorado.
Today, the Irish are richer, per capita, than the Germans and French.
McAleese mixed gratitude with an eye for opportunity.
McAleese expressed gratitude.
“The United States has been a major contributor to both peace and prosperity in Ireland,” she said in a statement.
“We also are very proud of the fact that we have become major investors in the United States,” she told Gov.Owens.
She hoped to encourage more economic teamwork speaking today at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce
Yet, she said, “there’s a certain price to be paid for the kind of prosperity we enjoy today.”
McAleese, 54, is concerned with “one of the greatest challenges we face” how fast- changing societies full of time- starved two-worker families can maintain cherished traditions.
A priority for Ireland today is “to keep connection with our global Irish family,” McAleese said.
In Montana this week, she opened a center for the study of Irish language and history. She met descendants of Irish miners who settled in Montana after fleeing poverty in Ireland.
Today, at Denver’s Regis University, she plans to hook up with U.S. and Irish students studying in partnership with the National University of Ireland in Galway.
Then she’ll travel to Indiana to give a graduation speech Sunday at the University of Notre Dame.
Elected president in 1997, McAleese stood unopposed for re-election in 2004. She grew up in Belfast, the eldest of nine, amid the sectarian conflict that ravaged Northern Ireland.
She’s a lawyer, married with three children. She champions the public education that sparked Ireland’s economic turnaround by creating a capable workforce.
In 1996, Irish leaders abolished fees for higher education. In the 1960s, they made secondary education free encouraging transformation of what then was a poor farming countrythen was a low-income society
Irish leaders also cut taxes on corporations from around 30 percent to 13 percent and hashed out deals with unions and farmers to lure foreign investors. Hundreds of U.S. companies invested in Ireland as a gateway to the European Union of 450 million people. Over the past decade, Ireland has invested more than $20 billion in the U.S.
Owens said Colorado should “look at the Irish economic model.” But he stopped short of endorsing Ireland’s free public higher education, favoring a public-private system based on competition.
Denver trial lawyer Jim Lyons, who served as former President Clinton’s special envoy to Ireland from 1996 to 2000, said he too is intrigued with Ireland’s model. “Our education system is lagging. They understood what it takes,” Lyons said.
“Instead of seeing what we can do to reduce the availability of public education, which seems to me absurd, we ought to see what we can do to improve it,” he said.
Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-820-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com.
