Re: Very few freebies like what the French left and their companion unions dream of "securing" today.
Talking of freebies:
» EU Structural and Cohesion Funds
Between 1973 and 2001 Ireland paid €10 billion to the EU budget and received more than €43 billion from it. The EU Structural Funds have been vital to Ireland’s development through investment in transport infrastructures, education, training and industry.
However, subsidies alone are not the cause of economic development in Ireland, and many argue that EU funds may actually contribute to retard growth in another way as well. In any case, none of the other poor countries in the EU which also receive subsidies have achieved anywhere near the rate of growth the Irish economy experienced (Portugal averaged 2.6% GDP growth, Spain averaged 2.5% and Greece averaged only 2.2% growth from 1990-2000).
celtia.info
EU subsidies are not the only reason for Ireland's "miracle", however --clue:
The luck of the Irish
Oct 14th 2004
From The Economist print edition
The economic boom that spawned the “Celtic Tiger” has transformed Ireland. But, asks John Peet (interviewed here), can it last?
[...]
The world's interest in Ireland is not confined to its rags-to-riches story. Thanks partly to the Irish diaspora, created by a century and a half of emigration, the country has far more clout than its small population might suggest.
[...]
Emigration, especially of graduates, hit new highs. At the start of the third Haughey government in 1987, a grim joke made the rounds: would the last Irishman to leave please turn out the lights? Yet only a few years later the Irish miracle had arrived. What caused it? Can it be replicated? And can it last?
economist.com
Now, can you tell me, Taro, where did all those Irish emigrants go? I mean, it's not like we've been swamped with Irishmen in Brussels, Paris, Milan, Barcelona,... Where did they go?
Answer: the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand. Hence the demographic communicating vessels between the overseas Anglo-Saxon world, Ireland, and Continental Europe.... |
