Ireland - A cynical tax haven?

Fintan O'Toole by Jon Berkeley

Fintan O'Toole wrote in May 2013, Ireland needs a better economic strategy than ‘come here to avoid tax'. He said: "An official White House report categorised Ireland as a tax haven in 2009 and last week’s Senate hearings on Apple’s creative accounting embedded the phrase in public discourse. If it takes permanent hold, the consequences could be enormous." He then said:

"I was browsing Forbes, the magazine for billionaires, online about a year ago. There was a piece about Ireland’s status as a tax haven. Apparently through some technological glitch, you could see that two phrases had been edited out and replaced with euphemisms. Thus “Ireland’s tax favoured status” was struck out and replaced with “Ireland’s hospitality”.

And the statement that “US companies can pretend to be headquartered in Ireland in order to avoid US tax” was doctored to say that US companies can “set up shop in Ireland”. This kind of thing is amusing, but it’s also deadly serious."

Fintan O'Toole explained how critical language is to international community's perception of Ireland:

"The Forbes piece is a perfect illustration of how vulnerable the perception of Ireland is to changes of language. Ireland is either a hospitable place where you can set up shop like a friendly village grocer or a cynical tax haven, and increasingly, in the US, it is routinely referred to as the latter.

Northern Ireland needs more female entrepreneurs

The Harvard Business Review said that the greatest point of untapped leverage in the world is the woman who could be an entrepreneur.

"After reviewing extensive research, a group of us made recommendations on how the United States could improve the outcomes of its development efforts and bring greater prosperity and stability to the world. We all agreed on one of them: Invest more in female entrepreneurs."

Unfortunately things aren't exactly great in Northern Ireland. On the state of entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor of 2009, available here, reported:

"Female entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland remains low and at 2.4 per cent is
now significantly lower than in the UK (3.7%). The level of entrepreneurial activity
for males has risen from 7.4 to 8 per cent. The female/male ratio is now less than
a third (30%) which is the same as in 2008 and the lowest in the UK."

"It's the Flags Stupid, Not the Economy" (Ian Knox)

This Ian Knox cartoon with the caption,"It's the Flags Stupid," (a take on the famous quote here from Clinton) captures most perfectly how very incredibly Northern Ireland politics and many within Northern Ireland society are entirely detached from mainstream 21st Century living.

As for the original quote - "It's the economy stupid" - what did it actually mean? Donald Riley explains here and excerpted below (emphases mine):

'It’s the economy because without a strong one, there is nothing else. There is no national defense. There are no entitlement programs. There is no discretional spending.'

See a selection of Ian Knox prints for sale here.

See an archive of Ian Knox's work from the 'If You Ask Me' segment on the BBC's Hearts and Minds show here.

See Nelson McCausland's recent attack on Ian Knox here.